BT teams up with Warner Bros for new sports venture in UK and Ireland
BT Group has agreed to form a new sports joint venture with Warner Bros Discovery in the UK and Ireland.
The telecoms giant confirmed the deal as it also reported that trading is “on the right track” despite a dip in revenues for the past year.
In February, BT said it was in exclusive negotiations with the US media giant after completing a lengthy review of its BT Sport operation.
It confirmed it will now form a 50:50 joint venture which will bring together BT Sports and Eurosport.
“BT Group has again delivered a strong operational performance thanks to the efforts of our colleagues across the business,” said chief executive Philip Jansen.
“We have finalised the sports joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery to improve our content offering to customers, aligning our business with a new global content powerhouse.”
Jansen explained that BT also extended its channel supply deal with Sky beyond 2030 and agreed to a memorandum of understanding to extend the FTTP co-provisioning agreement.
“Our modernisation continues at pace and we are extending our cost savings target of £2bn by end full-year 2024 to £2.5bn by end full-year 2025,” he added.
For the year ended 31 March, the group’s adjusted EBITDA went up 2 per cent to £7.6bn, while profits before tax increased by 9 per cent.
However revenue went down 2 per cent to £20.9bn due to a decline in BT’s Enterprise division.