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Discovery’s Eurosport has acquired the rights to the Olympic Games
Discovery’s Eurosport has acquired the rights to the Olympic Games. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Discovery’s Eurosport has acquired the rights to the Olympic Games. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Eurosport drops 'ring of stars' from logo in dramatic rebrand

This article is more than 8 years old

Sports broadcaster to undergo biggest revamp in its 26-year history as new owner Discovery seeks to highlight premium rights deals such as the Olympics

Eurosport is set for its most radical overhaul in its 26-year history as new owner Discovery unveils a new image that aims to shed the “baggage” of its heritage of cheaper sports rights and production to reflect investment in premium content such as the Olympics.

Discovery, which last year fast-tracked its move to take full control of Eurosport from French broadcaster TF1, is to unveil a string of changes from 13 November including a new logo that will see the “ring of stars” that have run on-screen since launch in 1989 scrapped.

Peter Hutton, chief executive of Eurosport, said that US giant Discovery is “heralding a new era” with the makeover to shed the “baggage” of the old Eurosport.

“It is a great old brand that everyone in Europe has grown up with as a pay-TV sports brand,” he said. “It is linked in people’s heads with [some] second-tier sports and non-exclusive rights and that isn’t what we have been sent here to do [with the company],” he said. “The problem with a brand as old as Eurosport is it brings a lot of associations with it. Plenty of baggage comes with it. It is the biggest change since Eurosport launched. It was time for a dramatic change.”

The ring of stars, which have been reduced to a single star “as a nod to history” in the new logo, were introduced at launch to represent the European states when Eurosport was first launched by the European Broadcasting Union and Sky.

Eurosport is dropping its ‘ring of stars’ as part of a rebrand

Hutton, who was brought in to run Eurosport eight months ago, said there has been a complete reinvention of how Eurosport is positioned.

He said Discovery has invested in “jewels in the crown”, such as the Olympics rights at a European level, as well as strengthening local country content with premium TV deals.

Examples include Champions League in Singapore, top flight French and Italian football for the Netherlands, and Formula One in Portugal.

The rights push has been backed by upping the production quality of coverage, what Hutton calls moving from a “faceless image” of live sports with commentary back-to-back, with initiatives such as signing John McEnroe for French Open tennis coverage and Ronnie O’Sullivan for snooker.

“We have taken Eurosport more into exclusive sports content, Olympics is the biggest example of that, [viewing] driver sports content away from its traditional image,” he said. “We’ve invested in rights, we’ve invested in production but we also need people to notice that change. We need to get people far more emotionally engaged in [Eurosport] sport. It is not just the logo, it is the whole graphic look across the business and the viewing experience.”

Discovery says that the new-look Eurosport, which includes the strapline “Fuel your passion”, is being “propelled into the 21st century” with the US TV giant taking a completely different attitude to the business than its previous owners.

Eurosport promo

“What is philosophy behind the channel?,” says Hutton. “Previously it was there to make money for its owners. It ran as a standalone, profitable business. It’s different now. Yes, it will generate profit but it will be at the heart of the whole Discovery business. Part of the whole Discovery world.”

Hutton says that the Discovery effect has already started to pay dividends citing the example of a 20% increase in its share of adult viewers of Eurosport UK in the first none months this year.

On the prospect of potentially looking to add the the eye-wateringly expensive UK Premier League TV rights to the portfolio, Hutton says that it is a complex situation as Discovery has TV channel carriage deals with Sky and BT, as well as an ad sales deal with Sky, which makes charging in as a rival bidder a politically, and commercially, fraught decision.

“There are [perhaps] some battles that are not worth winning,” he says diplomatically.

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