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Banijay Unveils New Sports Division, centred around “Sportainment”

French multinational production company Banijay has announced a move into “sportainment” with the start of a new sports division. By: Dylan Low

Banijay Sports will be based on entertainment, documentary and digital content with a sports perspective, as they look to pursue new collaborations, content investment and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) in the industry.

This newly set-up division is not inclusive of broadcast or streaming permissions.

On Tuesday afternoon, Banijay CEO Marco Bassetti disclosed the plans for the new division at U.K. TV conference Content London.

The official development into sports will be added onto Banijay’s current existing content, which entails various documentaries from Banijay-owned Workerbee such as That Peter Crouch Film, featuring notable UK football player Crouch, made available on Amazon Prime Video, Tyson Bruno, made in collaboration with Sky Studios for Sky, showcases the competitive rivalry between boxing legends Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno while Human Playground, which is voiced-over by Idris Elba, was created by Scenery and Workerbee for Netflix.

Other Banijay corporations namely Endemol Shine Iberia and Endemol Shine Australia have taken steps into sports documentaries while Banijay Benelux is the parent company for Dutch sports production company Southfields, which takes on coverage, talk shows and documentaries among other programmes. Earlier in the year, Banijay Ibera also signed an agreement to set up sports content production company LaLiga Studios.

Bassetti stated, “While we’ve already made some considerate moves in sport across our global footprint of talented producers, we wanted to concentrate our efforts in building value in this space,

“In having a centralised division, we have further capacity to deliver on partnerships, carve greater volume, mobilise digital opportunities, and ultimately, fulfil our ongoing goals to scale the group.”

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