Mexico: IFT will monitor Fox Sports sale

Gabriel Contreras, president of Mexico’s Federal Institute of Telecommunications, said his institute will monitor the sale of the Fox Sports TV channel (part of the global merger agreement between 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Co.), ensuring it will not cause competition problems in the pay TV market.

“What we are going to analyze is qualify whether the buyer can be eligible, that it is independent of the parties, and that there is no problem in terms of competition with the buyer. If it turns out that it is someone who has a lot of market participation and is going to generate another problem, clearly we would not authorize it,” Contreras said.

He added that the objective of the IFT is to preserve competition, and therefore, both ESPN and Fox Sports will remain competitors, because that is why they were prevented from concentrating on a single player.

Last Monday the regulator approved the merger agreement between the companies, valued at US$71 billion dollars, under the condition that they sell the channels and programming rights of Fox Sports in Mexico, in a similar decision to those taken in other countries such as Brazil or Chile.

Full Content: El Financiero

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