Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

I heard an interesting news story about BeIN sports yesterday (10/3). BeIN is currently sueing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because a pirate TV station on Riyadh is broadcasting content from BeIN without paying any license fees. They did that for the entire World Cup which BeIN had bought the middle east rights to exclusively carry. It seems BeIN is a spin off of Al Jazziera and both are largely owned by the Qatari government. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have an ongoing dispute as Qatar supported many of the Arab Spring revolutionaries while SA was putting them in jail and sometimes beheading. Much of the BeIN programming is extremely popular in SA - soccer, tennis, F1 and motorcycle racing are very big in the middle east. SA seems to want to hurt Qatar by hurting Qatari companies. While SA claims they don't know who operate the pirate TV station, it has a tower and broadcasts from Riyadh. That makes the Kingdom's "we can't find them" rather unbelievable.  

None of this directly affects BeINs broadcast of US college football currently, but if the company suffers a large enough financial drain it could state to. If you watched the game last week on BeIN, most of the network promos were for the sports most popular in SA that are being pirated. I never thought middle east politics could effect my watching of NT football! 

Here's a link to a print news story about what's going on. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/qatar-s-bein-sports-seeks-1-billion-damages-from-saudi-arabia

 

  • Thanks 3
Posted

BeIN is broadcasting F1 over there? I k ow ESPN has it in the states. I wonder if their coverage is better?

 

I miss the job NBCSN did. Leigh, Paul, and Steve did a great job. Will Buxton has to be the best sideline reporter in sports. 

Posted
On 10/5/2018 at 2:44 PM, Rudy said:

BeIN is broadcasting F1 over there? I k ow ESPN has it in the states. I wonder if their coverage is better?

 

I miss the job NBCSN did. Leigh, Paul, and Steve did a great job. Will Buxton has to be the best sideline reporter in sports. 

According to the Wikipedia on it, they have Middle East/North African rights not including Israel. 

During the UTEP game, they kept promoing the Turkish Soccer league Süper Lig. I guess I knew there was a Turkish league, but don't imagine there is much demand in North America for it. But if you've got a 24/7 schedule you have to fill it. And I guess being able  to picture the Turks they will get some North American coverage is good. 

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Please review our full Privacy Policy before using our site.