Ludwig Sneyers, the chief executive of the Belgian Pro League, the country’s top football league, has said that the Fox International Channels broadcast subsidiary of media conglomerate News Corporation is a “potential buyer” of the next cycle of domestic rights, according to the Het Laatste Nieuws news website.
“Fox already has an office in Antwerp and [general entertainment channel] Fox Life is available on [pay-television operator] Telenet,” he said. “It could therefore be a potential buyer. We have not yet started negotiations with Fox, but I must admit that we know them very well and we rub shoulders with them regularly.”
The next cycle of rights will cover three seasons, from 2014-15 to 2016-17.
In the current cycle, Telenet has rights in Belgium’s Flemish-speaking region of Flanders and has sublicensed rights in the French-speaking region of Wallonia to pay-television broadcaster Voo. Telenet also sublicensed its free-to-air highlights to public-service broadcaster RTBF in Wallonia and commercial broadcaster VTM in Flanders. Belgacom, which operates in both Flanders and Wallonia, acquired non-exclusive live rights.