The Bolivian Football Federation (FBF) has received bids for rights to its domestic club competitions from incumbent the Sports TV Rights agency, telco Telefónica Celular de Bolivia (TELECEL) and GolTV, the pay-television broadcaster active in the Americas.
The bids were announced after broadcasters submitted their offers yesterday (Monday). On July 16, the FBF launched a fresh invitation to tender process for the broadcast rights to the División Profesional and División Aficionados, inviting offers for four years, from 2021 to 2024.
Telecel, known commercially as Tigo, has offered a total of $46m, while the FBF said that GolTV’s offer amounts to $49,979,276. The offer from GolTV has clauses attached to it under a revenue sharing model.
División Profesional broadcast rights are currently held by Sports TV Rights in a deal worth $4.1m per season and which expires at the end of this season. In an effort to retain its rights, the FBF said Sports TV Rights has made a new offer worth a total of $46.53m (an average of $11.6m per season).
The federation previously set out terms for a four-year contract, with a base total amount of $45m (€38.2m) – an average of $11.25m per season – being requested. Bidders also had to provide financing for the implementation of video assistant referee (VAR) technology in FBF competitions.
The FBF set a deadline of August 10 for first-round bids to be submitted, with the offers to be assessed on the same day. The Federation last month cancelled an initial broadcast rights tender for club competitions.
The FBF said the three offers have come forward after an initial eight companies requested the tender documents. The EFE news agency said the IMG agency, Grupo BEO Sport, FECOTEL, OPI SAS and Nexus had expressed interest in the rights.
The FBF will now assess the three offers, with a recommendation to be made to its executive committee.
The FBF previously moved to reclaim control over the División Profesional rights from 2021 onwards. The rights reclamation stripped the league’s 14 clubs of negotiating their own broadcast rights in favour of placing the collective negotiating power with the FBF.