BT Sport to lose broadcast rights for NBA basketball and UFC

BT Sport is set to lose the broadcast rights to the popular UFC "Ultimate fighting" and NBA basketball after walking away from the bidding amid spiralling costs. Marc Allera, head of BT Consumer, said that the strategy for BT Sport has matured from having an "Emotionally driven start-up mentality" when it launched five years ago to a more clinical assessment of the value it derives from each sport. Walking away from UFC and the NBA comes weeks after Eleven Sports outbid the company for the rights to Italian Serie A football games and represents a further shift for BT to concentrate only on its most valuable rights. BT Sport is no longer considered a "Core" element of the telecoms company's consumer offering, according to senior executives within the company, with more effort and resource devoted to improving its network and customer service. It hopes to launch its own streaming service but also to sell the sports rights to companies including BT and Virgin Media, who it has approached in recent months over deals.

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