David Butorac, the chief executive of pay-television operator OSN, has said that the 2013-14 English Premier League football season could kick off without a broadcast partner in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, according to the Al Arabiya news website.
“I have no basis to be confident that English Premier League fans will be able to watch the start of the next season,” Butorac said. “It would be a travesty for sports fans in this region to face dark screens during the Premier League.”
The MP & Silva agency in January acquired the next cycle of Premier League rights in the MENA region.
Butorac said that the issue of increasing rights fees had been raised during OSN’s talks with both MP & Silva and the league. “We’ve reinforced to them – as we have the Premier League themselves – the economic value of the rights,” he said. “But they’re not willing to accept that broadcasters are no longer prepared to accept losses.”
Abu Dhabi-government owned Abu Dhabi Media paid about $360 million (€274.8 million) for the rights for the three seasons from 2010-11 to 2012-13 – a threefold increase on the previous cycle, the report added. Butorac said that Abu Dhabi Media’s previous bid was “economically unrealistic.”
MP & Silva business development director Fadi Zouein added: “Nothing has been concluded. We are still in negotiation with several broadcasters… I doubt that the screen will go blank. These are just rumours that people are coming out with. If we weren’t confident of handling this in MENA we wouldn’t have been awarded it.”