August 22 – The English Football League (EFL) is halfway through its first midweek round of EFL fixtures to be streamed in the UK and Ireland. 31 games across the Sky Bet Championship, Sky Bet League One and Sky Bet League Two will have been live-streamed by the end of tonight’s matches.
By Paul Nicholson
August 20 – The Saudi Arabian competition authority has today released a ruling that bans Qatari-based broadcaster beIN Sport from transmitting into the kingdom. The cancelling of the beIN Sport license means that the only way to view top level international football in Saudi Arabia will be illegally via the pirate channel beoutQ.
November 16 – France’s Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) has written to the Directorate General for Trade at the European Commission calling for support in investigating the piracy activities of Saudi-broadcast beoutQ and demanding the copyright theft is stopped.
By Paul Nicholson
August 16 – Pirate satellite broadcast beoutQ, which has been stealing the rights to beIN Sport broadcast content, has continued where it left at the World Cup, with every game of the first Premier League weekend stolen and broadcast via the Arabsat satellite. beoutQ also stole six of the 10 opening games of France’s Ligue 1, including PSG vs Caen.
August 16 – Facebook has added more football broadcast rights to its rapidly growing portfolio, this time bringing to its streaming platform UEFA Champions League and UEFA Super Cup rights in Spanish-speaking Latin American territories.
August 15 – Facebook has confirmed it has snapped up the rights to show Spain’s LaLiga on Indian sub-continent in a three-year deal that starts Friday with the kick-off of the new league season.
By Paul Nicholson
August 10 – Qatar-owned sports broadcaster beIN SPORTS has renewed its exclusive Premier League broadcast rights deal for a further three years starting from the 2019/20 season. beIN’s rights will cover the Middle East and North Africa.
August 9 – Borussia Dortmund is re-launching its club TV channel – BVB-TV – using Sportradar’s OTT platform. The channel will provide free content and a subscription service for €1.99 a month.
August 8 – Sports agency IMG, that is rapidly expanding its broadcast capability, has launched Serie A Pass for OTT subscribers.
August 7 – Sports agency IMG is launching itself into the broadcast market in Scandinavia with its own OTT channel Strive, that will broadcast Spain’s LaLiga and Italy’s Serie A exclusively live.
July 24 – Amazon Prime Video has released a trailer for its Manchester City docu-series that will launch on the streaming service August 17.
July 23 – With broadcast piracy issues increasingly concerning sports rights owners anxious to maintain their TV deals and value in an increasingly disrupted marketplace, the Premier League has won a further blocking order in the UK High Court forcing pirate streams to shut down.
July 23 – Premier League club Manchester United have expanded TV channel distribution platforms to streaming services Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku and Xbox. The club last season launched MUTV on iOS, Android and on the web at MUTV.com.
By Paul Nicholson
July 16 – Saudi Arabia quickly responded to FIFA’s statement that it was to take legal action in Saudi Arabia against pirate television channel beoutQ that broadcast every match of the World Cup in Russia illegally to the kingdom, saying that it welcomed the FIFA action.
By Paul Nicholson
July 12 – FIFA has stepped back into the beoutQ piracy debate ‘urging’ Saudi Arabia to support efforts to stop the copyright theft taking place in the country and saying that it will take legal action in Saudi Arabia to protect its rights.