Italian public-service broadcaster Rai has struck a deal with the organizers of the upcoming Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games to serve as the domestic rights partner of the upcoming event.
Rai will provide widespread multi-channel coverage of the Winter Paralympics, which will take place between March 6 and 15 across Northern Italy, specifically in Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Verona, and Val di Fiemme.
This will include live event broadcasts, shoulder content, and ancillary programming around the games, disseminated across Rai’s primary linear channels and all public service TV platforms around the country.
This represents an extension for Rai, which also covered the previous Winter Olympics, held in 2022 in Beijing.
Speaking on the announcement, Rai chief executive Giampaolo Rossi commented: “For the public service, sport is much more than a great spectacle: it is a universal language that unites, educates, and makes our society more open and inclusive.
“Reporting on the Paralympic Games means highlighting extraordinary stories of courage and talent, offering all citizens the opportunity to identify with the most authentic values of sport. Rai is proud to offer its voice, its technology, and its cultural mission."
Rai is already the long-term Olympics free-to-air rightsholder in Italy in a deal that runs through 2032 through a sub-licensing agreement with US media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) alliance of public service networks.
The agreement covered the Paris 2024 games, and also stretches across Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032, alongside the 2026 and 2030 (French Alps) Winter Games.
It allows Rai to broadcast the events exclusively across its linear and digital platforms, as well as non-exclusively on the radio.
Back in October, the exclusive live rights across almost all of Europe to the 2026 Winter Paralympic Games were snapped up by the EBU.
That deal specifically excluded Italy, where Rai has now stepped in to provide comprehensive coverage, as well as the UK, where commercial broadcaster Channel 4 holds rights.
The EBU has held Paralympic Winter Games rights across the continent since the Sochi 2014 edition of the multi-sport event.
Given the location of these Games, the action will take place during a favorable time zone for the various EBU members.
EBU members in the following 23 countries have already committed to providing live Paralympics coverage: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, and Ukraine.
The free-to-air broadcast body and its members have also sealed rights for the 2026 Winter Olympics (alongside WBD), meanwhile, through a deal disclosed in early 2023 that covers all Olympic Games - Winter and Summer - through 2032.
