Telecoms firm América Móvil (AMX) has consolidated its grip on airing the Olympics across Latin America, retaining the rights in 16 territories in a deal running up to and including the Brisbane 2032 games.
Events covered by the new deal include the winter games in 2026 (Milano Cortina) and 2030 (French Alps), and summer games in 2028 (Los Angeles) and 2032 (Brisbane), as well as the Youth Olympic Games during the same period.
The agreement sees AMX, owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, secure exclusive pay-TV and digital broadcast rights for the events across Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
As previously, Brazil has been carved out of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) sales process in Latin America due to the organization's agreement with commercial broadcaster Globo covering pay-TV rights that run until 2032.
Mexico has also been left out, having been included in the previous deal, with TeleviaUnivision winning exclusive media rights in the country for all Olympic Games through 2032 in a deal struck earlier this year covering free-to-air, pay-TV, and digital platforms.
The agreement builds on América Móvil’s previous rights agreement with the IOC for the Winter Olympics in 2018 (PyeongChang) and 2022 (Beijing), along with the summer Olympics in 2020 (Tokyo) and 2024 (Paris), and the Youth Olympics during that period.
That deal covered the same territories, plus Mexico.
Before that, América Móvil held pan-regional Latin American rights (excluding Brazil) to the 2014 winter Olympics and 2016 summer games in a deal worth (at the time) $110 million, almost three times the combined fee of $43 million in the region for the previous cycle when ESPN Latin America and Terra held the rights.
América Móvil then sold non-exclusive pay-TV rights to both Fox Sports Latin America and ESPN International for the 2014 and 2016 games.
América Móvil owns the prominent Latin American broadcaster Claro Sport.
The IOC, meanwhile, has been securing its future broadcast partners recently, having launched tenders for the 2026 to 2032 cycle last year in major markets.
This year, the governing body landed a major, multi-faceted deal with its long-time US broadcast partner NBCUniversal through 2036 in March and, more recently, handed out FTA rights in Brazil for the 2026 and 2028 Olympics to CazeTV, the Brazilian sports streaming channel run by YouTuber Casemiro Miguel.
As well as landing its wide-ranging agreement in Mexico (TelevisaUnivision), the IOC announced Sky New Zealand as its broadcast partner through 2032.
Olympic media rights for the 2026-32 cycle in sub-Saharan Africa have still not been awarded, while the IOC launched a tender covering the same period across the Indian subcontinent in July.
The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games are set to run from February 6 to February 22.
