The Argentinian government has acquired free-to-air media rights for the 2014 Fifa World Cup national football team tournament in Brazil.
Public-service broadcaster TV Pública will exploit the rights on DeporTV, a state-owned digital-terrestrial channel, according to the Diagonales news website.
The report added that pay-television broadcasters TyC Sports and DirecTV have also acquired cable-television rights for the tournament in Argentina.
Thirty-two of the tournament’s 64 games will be broadcast live on DeporTV, with the other 32 being shown on a delayed basis.
The live games on DeporTV will include all Argentina games and all knockout games as well as the opening match of the tournament, between Brazil and Croatia, as well as group-stage games between England and Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal, and Uruguay and England.
The free-to-air deal marks an expansion of the government’s ‘fútbol para todos’ (‘football for everyone’) scheme, which allows domestic league matches to be shown on free-to-air television. The Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, the Argentinian football association, agreed a 10-year deal, from 2009-10 to 2018-19, with the government for rights covering the top two divisions in the country.