According to the information reported on the Argentine newspaper ‘La Nacion’s official website on February 13th, the Argentine Government made a formal request to TNT Sports and Fox to broadcast Professional Football League’s -which has officially started on Friday February 12th- on the FTA TV channel ‘TV Publica’. The country’s Government had already expressed its intentions to implement a similar initiative for the Football League that took place between October 2020 and January 2021, but finally no agreement was reached.
As reported from La Nacion, both Fox (Disney) and TNT Sports promised to report this initiative to cable operators, who charge the Football Pack and would have fewer matches to broadcast exclusively, to give an answer. In addition, always according to La Nacion, the Government, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) -football regulator entity in Argentina- and the companies will meet again in the coming days to reach an agreement.
The most likely panorama, according to La Nacion, is that TV Publica broadcasts at least two matches of the Professional Football League Cup simultaneously with the Football Pack. ‘It could be three. I see it more difficult to be four’, reported a source familiar with the negotiations between the companies and the Government. In case an agreement is reached, TV Publica could broadcast the matches of the tournament, distributed in one match per fixture date (one on Friday and one on Saturday in the case of two matches are agreed, and one more match on Sunday if states that there will be three). On a first stage, again according to La Nacion, the matches played by the Boca Juniors, River Plate, San Lorenzo de Almagro, Club Atletico Independiente and Racing Club teams would not be broadcast on TV Publica, ‘since that would conspire against premium subscriptions, the main income source for TV companies and, indirectly, for football clubs’.
In addition, if the initiative takes place, TV Publica will be able to feature its own team of journalists for each broadcast, and handle the advertisements of each one of them. In the same way, if negotiations are successful, it will be the owners of the TV rights who will decide which football matches will be broadcast on TV Publica on each fixture date, without interference from the Government.
During the first days of January, Disney extended the agreement with AFA to broadcast Argentine football matches until 2030. Currently, broadcasts are being done between the Fox Sports Premium and TNT Sports premium channels.