Marcelo Tinelli, vice-president of Argentinian Primera División club San Lorenzo, has said an “excellent meeting” has been held with international sports broadcaster ESPN and Spanish agency Mediapro over the next set of rights to club football in the country.
ESPN and Mediapro are said to have joined forces with a view to entering a bid for the rights and Tinelli, who heads a commission that has been formed to lead the negotiations, provided an update following a meeting held on Saturday.
“We are having meetings with different stakeholders, but the one with ESPN and Mediapro was excellent,” Tinelli said, according to the Telam news agency.
“We want AFA (Argentinian Football Association) football to reach as many people as possible, to be seen by as many people as possible. ESPN has five channels to transmit (games), something which is very important, and an alliance with Mediapro would be very strong.”
It emerged last month that US media companies Fox and Turner had put forward a 15-year offer for the rights to club football in the country. Fox and Turner are said to have made an offer worth an initial two billion pesos per year (€122.6m/$130m) from 2017, with the possibility of reviewing the contract every five years and the implementation of annual increases of 10 to 12 per cent from 2020.
Following meetings held last month, the commission that has been formed to lead the negotiations was said to have made a counter offer worth more than double the proposal of Fox and Turner.
Clubs are said to have demanded 3.5 billion pesos per year for the rights, plus additional revenue based on a number of different factors. It is said that this could increase the annual value of the rights to nearer 4.25 billion pesos per year.