The Olympic rings are seen on the Eiffel Tower Friday, June 7, 2024, in Paris. The Paris Olympics organizers mounted the rings on the Eiffel Tower on Friday as the French capital marks 50 days until the start of the Summer Games. The 95-foot-long and 43-foot-high structure of five rings, made entirely of recycled French steel, will be displayed on the south side of the 135-year-old historic landmark in central Paris, overlooking the Seine River. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) --
The first Olympic Esports Games are set to be added soon to the IOC's portfolio of events as it seeks to attract and retain young audiences.
The International Olympic Committee said Friday it will ask members to approve a proposal to create a video game Olympics when they meet next month in Paris on the eve of the Summer Games.
The Olympic body said it was in "advanced discussions with a potential host" that should be announced soon after the July 23-24 meeting in Paris.
"The IOC is taking a major step forward in keeping up with the pace of the digital revolution," its president Thomas Bach said in an online briefing.
The Esports Olympics will build on an IOC-backed week of video game competitions held last year in Singapore. It was a mix of physical simulations of Olympic sports and traditional video games.
The IOC said 75 percent of viewers engaging with Singapore events were between the ages of 13 to 34.
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A man rides past the Tencent headquarters in Beijing, China on Aug. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
Paramount Skydance says the Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings withdrew from its bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery to avert a possible national security review.
Paramount's revised filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of its takeover bid said the Chinese company had dropped its $1 billion financing commitment out of concern, since it would be a "non-U.S. equity financing source," that its bid might be subject to a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. That was even though approval by CFIUS or by the Federal Communications Commission was not a condition of the bid.
The SEC filing, dated Monday, said that foreign sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, which are providing $24 billion for Paramount's bid, had agreed to give up a right to participate in Warner Bros' management to avoid the additional scrutiny.
On Monday, Paramount launched a hostile $77.9 billion takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, competing with rival bidder Netflix to buy the company behind HBO, CNN and a famed movie studio.
Big deals that involve foreign companies are sometimes subject to national security reviews by CFIUS, a U.S. government group chaired by the Treasury Secretary that studies mergers for national-security reasons. It has the power to force companies to change ownership structures or divest completely from the U.S.
Under former President Joe Biden as well as President Donald Trump, the Treasury Department has sought to strengthen its powers as national security concerns related to foreign investment have increased.
Tencent is among dozens of Chinese companies that the U.S. Defense Department has included in a list of companies it... Read More
