By Paul Nicholson
June 30 – Just as Serie A looked to have repaired bridges with beIN Sports for its broadcast rights in the Middle East and Africa, the league’s chief executive Luigi De Servio has surprisingly cast doubts on a potential deal brokered by AS Roma that could bring the league and the broadcaster back into alignment.
June 24 – After a fraught, and often bitterly chaotic, broadcast rights tender process in Turkey, beIN SPORTS has agreed a two-year deal as the exclusive domestic broadcaster of the Turkish Süper Lig in Turkey.
June 23 – The trend to longer term broadcast deals and away from three-year licensing agreements has been re-emphsised in Spain.
June 15 – Apple has taken its first step into live football broadcasting agreeing a deal that will see the Apple TV app become the exclusive platform for every MLS match.
June 8 – FIFA has expanded its FIFA+ streaming platform with the addition of Japanese, Korean, Italian and Bahasa languages.
May 19 – Following on from the announcement of an MoU with Mexico’s Liga MX, Germany’s Bundesliga has reinforced its position in Mexico and Central America with a four-year extension to its TV deal with subscription broadcaster SKY Mexico.
May 16 – US sports broadcaster Fox has secured another two seasons of neighbouring Canada’s men’s and women’s football.
April 29 – The UK government has added the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the UEFA European Women’s Championship to its ‘listed’ events, ensuring the tournaments will remain available for free-to-air television broadcasters.
April 14 – More detail of the new streamed FIFA+ OTT broadcast channel has been released with the ELEVEN media group announced it is supporting the service with bth production and rights.
April 5 – beIN Media Group is rebuilding its broadcast relationship with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) piece-by-piece with an agreement to extend it rights to cover the 2022 AFC Champions League and AFC Cup.
March 21 – beIN SPORTS will launch four new dedicated channels for the 12 remaining matches of the the AFC World Cup 2022 qualifiers that will be played over two match days.
March 16 – Star India and the Premier League have extended their broadcast agreement with all 380 fixtures each season to be aired across the Star Sports network as well as on Disney’s OTT platform Disney+ Hostar.
March 10 – The AFC has added to their global broadcast footprint with a media rights deal with Free TV Australia for the Pacific Islands.
March 9 – The Premier League has suspended its TV deal with Russia with immediate effect, cutting off the feed as punishment for the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
March 8 – The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has turned down the highest broadcast bid for the domestic TV rights to the SuperLig, instead preferring to go with an offer that is $50 million below the $150 million beIN/Digiturk had put on the table.