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Report: Al Jazeera eyeing new sports channel

Al Jazeera is reportedly looking at launching an Australian sports channel early next year, featuring Italian football league Serie A.

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2013-10-22_0053The Australian today reports Al Jazeera is looking at launching an Australian sports channel early next year, via BeIN Sport, its global sports network.

The Qatar-based broadcaster is understood to have secured rights for Italian football league Serie A.

FOX Sports Australia announced three weeks ago that it had acquired the Serie A rights but executives later learned that the distributor sold the Australian television rights twice and they had already been sold as part of a large multi-territory deal.

Updated: FOX Sports statement:
At the time of the announcement, FOX Sports believed it had reached agreement with the rights distributor however three days later the agency informed FOX Sports that there was an issue.

FOX Sports representatives were in Europe over the past week to continue work on the agreement but ultimately the issue was not resolved and the rights were withheld by the agency.

It transpires that due to an error, the agency effectively sold the Australian television rights twice – first, as part a larger multi-territory deal with another broadcaster, and then, later to FOX Sports Australia.

FOX Sports CEO, Patrick Delany, said: “This is a very disappointing outcome. We had hoped to bring Serie A back to Australian TV after an absence of 18 months.

Italian Football fans are very passionate and we are sorry we will be unable to broadcast Serie A this season.
“FOX Sports and Foxtel will to continue to deliver Australia’s most comprehensive coverage of football including every game of the Hyundai A-League Live, every game of the Barclays Premier League, Live coverage of La Liga, and the UEFAChampions League LIVE on ESPN.

“We will welcome any opportunity to enter the market for Serie A rights in the future,” said Delany.

8 Responses

  1. Here is an intreresting fact in terms of Serie A. It used to be on ONE when it was a HD 24/7 sports channel, they had at least 2 games a week aswell as Bundesliga.

  2. @dwuuuu
    It’s Al Jazeera. They don’t need to make money from it to begin with. They easily have enough money to outbid Fox Sports next time the EPL rights come up.

  3. If this happens, I hope it is part of the Sports package not like Setanta which should be part of the sports package in the first place, its not like it has bad content (English Championship, English League Cup, England internationals, Bundesliga, European rugby union and cricket).

    A pity Serie A won’t be on Fox Sports this year. Surely the company that controls the television rights to Serie A could of negotiated a deal that would see Serie A on Fox Sports in 2013/14 and then to the other broadcaster from 2014/15 onwards. Really happy that La Liga is on Fox Sports though, because it is one of the best football leagues (in terms of quality) in the world.

  5. @Bill The Global rights to Serie A are held by a London Company called MP&Silva (Media Partners & Silva Limited), so Foxtel had to negotiate a contract with them and not Serie A directly.

    Given that only one company does the rights, it amazes me that they tried to sell the rights twice, when another company (BeIN Sports) already had the rights to Asia and Oceania (which Australia is apart of).

    If this channel is picked up by Foxtel, be interesting to see if it becomes apart of the Sports Package or an add on.

    Then again, who’s to say Foxtel will pick up the channel at all. It might be on Fetch, given they really don’t have any sports other than ESPN.

  7. It seems to be doing well internationally so more competition here wouldn’t be a bad thing. That is, so long as it is included in the Sports pack and not an add-on like Setanta. And if it is in HD then even better.

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