IFT: América Móvil & Grupo Televisa Can’t Have Exclusive Rights to Four Kinds of Sports Content

MEXICO CITY: The Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) of Mexico has determined that "preponderant" or dominant communications companies América Móvil and Grupo Televisa cannot hold the exclusive broadcast rights to four major sporting events.

Those events, per the IFT, are “the Mexican national football team’s matches (men’s major category); the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics organized by the International Olympic Committee; the opening and closing ceremonies, along with the opening matches, quarterfinals, semifinals and final of the FIFA World Cup, organized every four years and commonly known as the World Cup; and the final tournament games of the first division league, organized by the Mexican Federation of Association Football, commonly known as the Liga MX.”

Additionally, the IFT notes that “the decision is based on the analysis of a sample of 220,724 audiovisual contents broadcast between April 1, 2010, and April 30, 2014, and that the determination of the content was based of their non-replicable character and high level of regional or national audience expectation.”