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.
By Paul Nicholson
May 22 – Italian competition regulators have ruled that Serie A missed out on international broadcast revenue because agents MP & Silva, B4 Capital and IMG fixed the acquisition price of the rights from the league over three rights cycles from 2008 to 2017.
May 17 – beIN Sports, at loggerheads in Asia over its pan-regional broadcast rights deal, has expanded its portfolio of South American rights with the addition of this year’s Copa América.
By Paul Nicholson
May 14 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has said that it has not cancelled its TV rights agreement with beIN Sports and that the broadcaster, it said in a statement, “remains a valued commercial partner of the AFC”.
May 14 – Major League Soccer (MLS) has opened up a new broadcast content channel with the announcement of the launch on the Pluto TV free streaming service of its own channel (Ch. 203).
May 13 – The on-going battle against rogue Saudi Arabia-based pirate broadcaster BeoutQ that has seen the Saudi channel steal thousands of hours of sports and entertainment programming is causing government concern with a committee of UK Parliamentary MPs now calling for a “robust attack” on the channel.
May 10 – Facebook, which is gradually becoming a broadcast rights competitor for premium tier live football rights, has signed a content deal with Conmebol for this Summer’s Copa America in Brazil.
April 25 – LaLiga, in co-operation with Denmark’s RettighedsAlliancen, scored a major victory in the battle against broadcast pirate with a Danish court ruling that sites offering illegal streams of live sport should be blocked.
April 18 – Mediaset are on the verge of wrestling the free-to-air rights for the Champions League from Italian state broadcaster RAI in a two-year deal with Sky Italia.