(Bloomberg) — Bids for Turkish football’s broadcasting rights fell short of clubs’ expectations by some $100 million, forcing a delay in the organizer’s decision while operators blamed rampant piracy as the main reason for deteriorating valuations.
Companies including BeIN Media Group, the Qatari broadcaster currently holding the 2021-2022 rights to the first division known as the Super Lig, offered as much as $150 million per year, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Contestants can make lira-denominated bids for one or more of the eight packages auctioned off by the sport’s national governing body.
Clubs expected to receive at least $250 million, but operators fear authorities won’t be able to resolve the piracy issue haunting Turkish football, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing commercial considerations.
A 2021 investigation by BeIN found there were as many as two people illegally watching Turkish games for every person with a subscription.
That compounded the damage to broadcasting rights from the pandemic, hurting a key source of income for Turkey’s indebted clubs.
Saran Medya, a unit of the Istanbul-based Saran Group, and Turk Telekomunikasyon AS, the country’s second-largest telephone operator, also made bids.
The Turkish soccer federation known as TFF turned down the offers as inadequate and asked for revised ones to be submitted by Friday, the people said.
A commission of clubs and TFF executives will review them jointly with London-based media company IMG Media Ltd.
BeIN, Saran, Turk Telekom and the Turkish federation declined to comment.
Rampant Piracy
Piracy has already taken a huge toll on Turkish football.
BeIN Media, which won the existing rights in 2015 with an annual pledge of $500 million, is expected to pay just around $200 million during its final contract season. The reduction was in part due to adjustments made to account for extreme fluctuations in the Turkish currency.
An even lower valuation in the latest bids reflects failure by authorities to curb piracy, the people said.
If the gap between clubs and operators persists, the federation may decide to form a company to broadcast the games, they said.
Turkey’s heavily indebted soccer clubs, including Istanbul’s Fenerbahce and Galatasaray, depend on income from the broadcast rights to help manage their finances.
Turkey’s top four clubs, a group that also includes Besiktas and Trabzonspor, signed a debt-restructuring deal with banks last year. As of November, they owed a total of $750 million, more than three times their annual revenues.
Turkey is notorious for piracy in various sectors, ranking second after China in an OECD report from 2016 in the number of seizures of counterfeit and pirated goods.
The U.S. placed Turkey on a watch list in 2020.
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