Vodafone and Nos agree to share sports content

Vodafone Portugal and Nos announced a content distribution agreement that includes all national and international sport content rights currently owned or to be acquired by either of the parties. This deal, covering several sports seasons, ensures that both companies will make available to each other all football transmission rights, as well as all transmission and distribution rights to sports and/or club channels that each party holds at any point in time. 

This deal will be effective from the 2016/17 season, ensuring that all Nos and Vodafone customers will have access to the Benfica Club channel and to the Benfica home matches, regardless of the channel on which these matches are broadcast. 

This deal was designed to be open to other telecom operators, the operators said, saying they are committed to creating an open market, where access to relevant content is available to all.

The news follows a succession of deals for exclusive access to certain football clubs on the Portuguese TV market, led by deals announced by Nos and Meo. The latter, owned by Altice, has called for regulators to intervene in order to prevent Nos from dominating the market. The competition regulator has said it's looking at the market, but it has not taken any action yet.