Once again, football reflects the climate of the time. And if this historical moment is that of a president who announces “the end of the present State”, the Argentine team approves it: it was evidenced this week with the announcement of Telefe, which will begin to broadcast all Scaloneta matches during 2024. All : the Copa América in the United States, the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers and even the FIFA friendlies. Public Television, emptied of content in recent months, will no longer be the screen of the national team, as used to be customary in recent decades.
The new agreement was signed between the leading channel in audience in Argentina and Torneos, the company that had the television rights package and that will now be associated to produce the broadcasts, with the leading voices of the narrator Pablo Giralt and the commentator Juan Pablo Varsky.
The great business that this transfer implies has as its vertices different companies, all related to each other in one way or another. In addition to Telefe, by cable, the National Team’s matches can be seen on TyC Sports, which is owned 50% by Torneos and 50% by Grupo Clarín. However, those who want to watch all of the Copa América matches will have to have DirecTV, purchased in 2021 by the Werthein Group, which in that operation also retained the majority shareholding in Torneos.
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Explaining this group of companies may have more than one meaning: it is known that, for months, Paramount has wanted to sell Telefe as part of a global divestment. The versions about the supposed interested parties vary. At the local level, Marcos Galperin, owner of Mercado Libre, was one of those mentioned, although his Uruguayan offices always dismissed that information. Could the Werthein Group enter that list? Nobody has too many certainties, because everything is discussed and negotiated at international levels.
What is clear is that, in recent years, as part of its regional strategy, Telefe has been approaching sports in general, and football in particular. The broadcasts of the Copa Libertadores, and now this announcement that the National Team will be televised again, take place along those lines. “When you buy a right, you have an asset. And in a future sale, an asset is important,” a television executive tells PERFIL.
In the 2021 Copa América, which Argentina won in Brazil, Public Television made money: it bought the rights package for 200 million pesos, received 300 million in advertising and distributed that profit with Tournaments (50 million for each one). The estimates are now even higher: the National Team, as world champion, multiplied its audience and the interest it generates.
“Having the Argentine national team again within the Telefe content family fills us with pride and reaffirms our commitment to our audiences,” Darío Turovelzky, vice president of Paramount Latin America, stated in a statement.
Does Telefe ensure that the National Team reaches the entire country? The answer, according to those who know this type of transmissions in detail, leaves no doubt: no. The channel has a network of local channels that reproduce its programming, but this occurs only in the main cities of the country, not everywhere.
On the other hand, Public Television has 240 repeaters, it is transmitted in TDA throughout the country and gave its signal, free of charge, to the thirty provincial or university channels that make up the Federal Council of Public TV. So that? So that even in the most remote places and towns the National Team could be seen. Something that, in principle, Telefe could not guarantee.