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.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
November 8 – The consequences of CAF’s decision to terminate its contract with Lagardere Sports will have an immediate impact on the ability of African football fans to watch games on television.
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.”
By Paul Nicholson
October 9 – Football only has itself to blame for the bombshell dropped by beIN Media Group CEO, Yousef Al-Obaidly yesterday at the Leaders in Sport conference in London, who outlined a future of dramatically reduced rights fees from broadcasters worldwide, even for premium leagues and events.
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.
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.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
August 20 – With 24 hours to FIFA’s August 21 deadline – for the 54 nations of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to sign an “irrevocable” mandate, giving the world governing body the exclusive power to sell their media and marketing rights for the 2022 and 2026 World Cup qualifiers – it appears that the continent has fallen in line with the demand.
August 19 – The US women’s national team may hold the attention and hearts of the nation but their women’s professional league has never enjoyed anything like the same profile. A new deal with ESPN could be a step towards changing that.
August 7 – The English FA will launch a new over-the-top platform that will provide free live coverage of every Women’s Super League game from the start of the 2019/20 season.
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).
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.
June 27 – A study of shirt sponsorship within LaLiga by sponsorship consultancy Strock found Spain’s top clubs delivered a return on investment of €29 million last season via TV exposure.
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.
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.
March 19 – The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has teamed up with social media platform Twitter in a broadcast deal for the Brazilian women’s top flight, the 2019 Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino.