Eurosport owner, Discovery Communications, has paid €1.3bn for exclusive European rights to screen the Olympic Games from 2018 onwards.
It is unclear as of yet if this will affect the RTÉ contract who have traditionally held individual rights to the Games. The contract is due to begin in 2018 and end in 2024.
In a statement this afternoon, RTÉ said that it was "too early to say definitively that RTÉ won’t broadcast the Olympics in 2020 and 2024."
"It should be noted that rights to Rio 2016 were bought by RTÉ through a third party agency when the EBU failed in its bid for those games and Discovery Channel have said today that they will ‘sub-license a portion of the rights in many markets across Europe’."
RTÉ said it will continue to make every effort to secure the rights for the Olympic Games in 2020 and 2024 "so that Irish viewers can watch home-produced, relevant coverage of Irish athletes competing both in Tokyo in 2020 and at the 2024 Summer games - something that all countries would lose in the event of pan-European coverage.
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