By Osasu Obayiuwana
August 5 – beIN Sports, the international pay-tv broadcaster, financed by the government of Qatar, is officially the number one financial partner of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
August 1 – La Liga has not found a home for its broadcasting rights in the UK and Ireland for the 2019/20 season, leaving the big kick off in August in doubt for fans across the UK.
By Paul Nicholson
July 31 – Football’s most powerful governing bodies and rights holders have issued the largest combined statement to date condemning the theft of their broadcast rights by pirate broadcaster beoutQ and “requesting” the Saudi Arabian (KSA) government to immediately take “swift and decisive” action.
July 22 – The changes taking place in the ‘disrupted’ sports TV market are highlighted in a new analysis that finds that 23% of the world’s top leagues and federations now have their own OTT streaming services.
July 22 – Amazon Prime Video has bought the series ‘All or Nothing’ featuring Brazil’s 2019 Copa America win on home soil, TV sales agency Pitch International has announced.
July 18 – Manchester City has launched its own streaming service, Man City for TV, for fans globally with a free month’s trial before pricing goes to £1.99 per month.
July 18 – Irish fans of the English Premier League who rely on illegal internet streams to watch matches may soon no longer have access.
July 17 – British public broadcaster BBC has secured the broadcasting rights for the 2021 UEFA Women’s European Championship, which England will host.
July 9 – Saudi-based broadcaster beoutQ has continued its theft of live broadcast rights, tacitly backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and more overtly backed by Arabsat. It has stolen all 36 group matches of CAF’s Total Africa Cup of Nations.
June 28 – Liverpool are to show their six pre-season matches live on their own digital broadcast channels LFCTV and LFCTV GO.
By Paul Nicholson
June 15 – It would not be a major football tournament these days if it wasn’t being stolen for television by a Saudi-based broadcaster. The country that doesn’t allow women in its stadiums is nevertheless taking the women’s World Cup so seriously that it is allowing the piracy of every game from France 2019 on the beoutQ channels.
June 14 – The CEO of Italy’s Serie A has issued a powerful endorsement of beIN Sports in its battle against the copyright theft of Saudi Arabian-based BeoutQ that has been stealing the Qatari broadcasters’ live broadcasts and retransmitting on its own networks.
June 14 – UEFA has officially unveiled its new Over The Top (OTT) streaming platform – UEFA.tv – a bespoke platform built for the governing body that will be a mix of archive content and current UEFA competitions.
June 11 – Fly-on-the-wall documentaries charting the seasons (and generally struggles) of fallen giants battling to return to former glories makes popular television. English Championship club Leeds United look set to become the latest English club to feature in an Amazon documentary series.
May 30 – BeIN Sports will broadcast the Women’s World Cup after striking a deal with FIFA to air the tournament in more than 30 countries across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.