Telekom overpays for UEFA league TV rights

According to SportBiznisMedija, Telekom Serbia bought the rights to the Champions’ League, Europa League and a new league for the period between 2021 and 2024 for five regional markets paying 46 million per season. That price is good for UEFA which charged 19.65 million per season earlier. The only other media outlet on the contract is the Croatian state TV HRT which is set to pay three million Euro per season to broadcast one Champions’ League game.

Telekom Serbia replied to a question about the deal from N1, saying that the amount reported is not right but that the telecommunications services provider can’t disclose the exact amount because contracts with UEFA are business secrets.

Stock exchange expert Nenad Gujancic told N1 that Telekom Serbia is a shareholder society whose operations are not transparent even though it is owned by the public as private shareholders and through the state share of the company. “The company is relaxed in its operations since there is no great control or management accountability which is left to the party committees,” he said.

Deals like the one with UEFA affect the value of the Telekom. Analysts said that in 2018 alone, the value of the company dropped to some 900 million Euro, or by about half a billion Euro.

Telekom said that the UEFA deal is being financed by the Arena Channel Group, its subordinate company, from its own budget. It added that Arena has shown a profit every year.

“The contract will not increase the company’s debts whose increase did not cause the drop in value since we invested in acquisitions which expanded our user base and increased income. You know that this undoubtedly increases the value of a company,” Telekom said. The media said that Telekom’s step was aggressive and added that its main competitor United Group offered 50 percent more than I did previously but fell far short of the mark.

Sport Klub CEO Nemanje Simeunovic said that his station, which is part of United Group, did bid for the UEFA rights. “Of course we tried to get that content but we were led by economic viability. We were aggressive but to the point of rentability,” he said, adding that Telekom clients would have to be charged two or three times more than their current subscription in order for Telekom to make a profit.

Telekom has also signed contracts for the Spanish and Portuguese football leagues and the NBA.