The two struck a $500 million deal for the rights until 2025.
Qatar-based sports broadcaster beIn Sports will continue to bring England’s Premier League to the Middle East and North Africa region until 2025.
The $500 million dollar deal was announced on December 17 in a press release by the Premier League.
“They [BeIn Sports] have an outstanding track record of delivering top-quality Premier League content across all its platforms,” said Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters.
“Dedicated coverage of every match in the Premier League, as well as comprehensive support programming and digital content, has helped to further grow interest in our clubs and we look forward to continuing our fantastic partnership with beIN,” he added.
Chairman of beIN Media Group Nasser Al-Khelaifi, said: “We are delighted to renew our long-established and trusted partnership with the Premier League through to 2025. This deal demonstrates that rights-holders who do the most to protect their intellectual property also do the most to protect the value of their media rights.”
BeoutQ piracy
Shortly after Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt announced the blockade in 2017, the Qatari broadcaster beIN SPORTS was blocked to hundreds of thousands of subscribers in Saudi Arabia.
Two months later, a Saudi-based outfit, beoutQ, started broadcasting content stolen from beIn SPORTS. The signal was being transmitted using Saudi Arabia-based communications satellite operator, Arabsat.
BeoutQ developed into the sophisticated theft of intellectual property when it started putting set-top boxes on shelves and selling subscription packages. By this time, it had pirated numerous international sporting events including Super Bowl LII, the UEFA Champions League Final, the NBA Finals, multiple Formula 1 races, and all 64 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
In a joint statement by FIFA, the AFC, UEFA, the Bundesliga, LaLiga, Lega Serie A, LFP and the Premier League on the MarkMonitor publication of an investigative report into the operations of beoutQ, they said: “The report confirms without question that beoutQ’s pirate broadcasts have been transmitted using satellite infrastructure owned and operated by Arabsat. Cutting off its access to transmission services would be a major step in the fight to stop beoutQ. We all, individually and collectively, remain committed to bringing an end to international sports piracy.”
