Mexican Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) has officially reported that it has granted a new deadline for the sale of Fox Sports Mexico, one of the requirements that the regulator had established to approve the Disney-Fox merger, officially concluded in March 2019. 

Initially, the IFT had given Disney a six-months period to find a buyer for Fox Sports Mexico, with an initial deadline set for November 1st, 2019. That date included a six-month extension, requested by Disney. For this reason, the new date for the disincorporation of Fox Sports Mexico was set for May 1st, 2020. Later, the IFT decided to extend the deadline until August 3rd, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of August, and for the same reason, the regulator set October 6th as the new date. But, finally, due to the current impact of the pandemic, the IFT granted a new extension, this time for two months, until next December 4th.

‘IFT decided to grant an extension for the sale, which includes from September 29th to November 29th, 2020, so the disincorporation period will restart on November 30th, 2020 and will end on December 4th this same year’, reported the Mexican regulator.

Although up to now no buyer has been reported for the company, some of the main interested players would be AT&T, DAZN and News Corp. Jorge Hank Rhon, owner of Grupo Caliente, is also interested, as reported in several specialized websites. 

The sale of Fox Sports in Brazil was another requirement for the Disney-Fox merger, although, due to the pandemic, the Economic Defense Administrative Council (CADE) of that country approved it without the need to sell Fox Sports.