beIN SPORTS commits to Club World Cup TV despite piracy issues in Saudi
November 28 – Qatar-owned broadcaster beIN Sports has bought the TV rights for the next two editions of the FIFA Club World Cup in Qatar.
Broadcast
Italian dash for the Saudi Super Cup cash could cost $500m if beIN drops Serie A rights
November 27 – Serie A’s decision to take its Super Cup to Saudi Arabia could cost the Italian league $500 million in TV rights if beIN Sport follows through on its threat to drop the league from its schedules when the broadcast rights agreement comes up for renewal for the 2021-2024 cycle next year.
beIN adds free streaming channel in US driven by LaLiga
November 21 – beIN Sports is to add a new free live streaming channel to its US stable with the launch of beIN Sports XTRA which will debut with selected live games from Spain’s La Liga, France’s Ligue 1 and Turkey’s Super Lig.
BT renew UEFA club rights for £1.2bn adding more matches and technology boost
November 19 – The broadcast market may be disrupted by piracy and challenger broadcast platforms, but big money for premium product is still available if the £1.2 billion UK pay TV broadcaster BT Sport is paying for the next cycle of Europe’s Champions League is an indicator.
Spanish FA warned to make it rights sales operations legal
November 14 – The Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) who are controversially taking their Super Cup to Saudi in January for the first season of a €120 million three-year deal, have now fallen foul of Spain’s competition authorities over its invitation to tender for rights to the competition.
beIN wins French court order to protect TV rights from Saudis as ASO attempts to break contract
October 23 – The sports rights geo-political battle being waged in the middle east between Qatari broadcaster beIN Sport and Saudi Arabian-supported channels and broadcast rights interests, has taken a new twist.
Reliance interested in streaming Premier League games in India
By David Owen
October 21 – India’s Reliance Industries is mulling bidding for Indian streaming rights for the English Premier League and other top-notch sports competitions in future. Nita Ambani, a Reliance board member, told the Financial Times: “I would be very interested to get the digital rights of some of these games to be shown on digital in India.”
Pirates stealing football’s gold. 8.9m people streamed illegally in UK, finds report
October 14 – The revelation last week that middle eastern broadcaster beIN Sport will now, as a result of piracy, be treating all its sports rights acquisitions as non-exclusive, and will be dropping prices accordingly, is a wake-up call to football’s rights owners.
‘Your worst nightmare’. beIN’s Al-Obaidly tells ‘sleep-walking’ rights owners the TV bubble has burst
By Paul Nicholson
October 8 – The warning signs have been there for a while, the reality may only just be starting to hit home to a football business that is “still sleep-walking to a financial cliff”. Broadcast and media rights revenues that underpinned football’s massive growth are about to burst, and spectacularly so.
ESPN beefs up ‘MLS Decision Day’ coverage with all 12 end-of-season matches live
October 5 – US broadcast giant ESPN are set to carry a record amount of coverage this weekend for the final round of the regular MLS season.
Bundesliga lands ESPN broadcast deal for US
October 1 – Germany’s Bundesliga, which has been targeting commercial expansion in the US market, has secured a six-year broadcast deal with subscription streaming service ESPN+.
TV parity: UK government wants to ‘list’ major women’s events for free broadcast
September 20 – The rapid rise of the women’s game and the profile of the Women’s World Cup has prompted the UK government to call for a number of top tier women’s events to be added to the country’s ‘listed’ sports events that must be broadcast in free-to-air television.
Rights owners tell Saudis to stop ‘abusing’ football and end Arabsat’s beoutQ transmissions
By Paul Nicholson
September 17 – Football rights owners have issued another demand to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, satellite distributor Arabsat and IPTV platforms to stop the broadcast of pirate TV channel beoutQ that has been stealing their rights and rebroadcasting across the region.
LaLiga to launch TV channel in UK in all-encompassing Premier Sports deal
September 11 – The troubled UK TV deal for LaLiga’s live broadcast rights has now found a multi-platform solution with Premier Sports in a deal that will see live matches on Premier Sports 1 and 2, as well as LaLigaTV as a standalone channel as part of the Premier Sports package.
ESPN triple USL live output with expanded 3-year rights deal
August 28 – US sports broadcaster ESPN is taking a deeper step into domestic soccer with a new three-year deal the United Soccer League (USL) which will see it triple its coverage of the league.