UK broadband operator BT Vision is in talks with ESPN about acquiring rights from the UK pay-television broadcaster’s dwindling rights portfolio, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.
The report said that the negotiations could lead to BT “taking on even more of what’s left” of ESPN’s UK portfolio.
The future of ESPN’s UK premium sports channel is in doubt after it lost the live rights for football’s English Premier League and the English Premiership, the top tier of ruby union in the country, for the next rights cycle.
However, ESPN still has UK rights for some properties beyond next year, and the broadcaster recently agreed a new five-year deal, from 2012-13 to 2016-17, for rights covering the Scottish Premier League football division and selected Glasgow Rangers games in the Scottish Football League Third Division.
BT Vision, owned by UK telecommunications company BT, effectively dislodged ESPN as the Premier League’s secondary domestic live rights-holder by acquiring Premier League rights from 2013-14 to 2015-16.
BT also announced this week that it had purchased the domestic rights for Premiership matches plus rights for a summer rugby sevens tournament, in the four seasons from 2013-14 to 2016-17. The Premiership rights are currently held jointly by ESPN and pay-television broadcaster BSkyB from 2010-11 to 2012-13.