International pay-TV sports heavyweight BeIN Media Group has extended its exclusive broadcast partnership with English soccer’s top-tier Premier League in 24 countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) until 2028.
The multi-year extension is for the 2025-2028 rights cycle, with the media company’s flagship sports network, BeIN Sports, to showcase all 380 Premier League games each season, along with the group’s streaming service, TOD, ensuring unparalleled digital coverage.
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The 24-territory deal includes major markets such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and was reportedly worth about GBP550 million ($746.8million), or GBP183.3 million ($248.9 million) per season.
Of particular interest in the MENA region will be the likes of Algeria’s Rayan Aït-Nouri (Manchester City), Egypt’s Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) and Omar Marmoush (Manchester City), Morocco’s Nayef Aguerd (West Ham), Noussair Mazraoui (Manchester United) and Chadi Riad (Crystal Palace), and Tunisia’s Hannibal Mejbri (Burnley).
BeIN has broadcast the Premier League across the MENA region since 2013, when it secured the exclusive media rights for three seasons from previous broadcaster Abu Dhabi Media. The agreement, covering the 2013-14 to 2015-16 cycle, was valued at $320 million in total, or $106.7 million per season.
In November 2015, BeIN retained the exclusive rights for three more seasons. The deal, which ran until the end of the 2018-19 season, was reportedly worth a total of GBP300 million ($462.7 million) or GBP100 million ($154.2 million) per season.
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By GlobalDataIn August 2018, BeIN extended its contract to provide exclusive live coverage of the Premier League in the MENA region by three years until the end of the 2021-22 season. The deal was reportedly worth a total of GBP400 million ($516.1 million), or GBP133.3 million ($172 million) per season.
However, the deal was finalized while BeIN Sports faced a significant challenge from beoutQ, a Saudi-backed pirate broadcast network active across MENA, which has been providing unauthorised coverage of events to which the Qatar-based broadcaster held the rights.
In December 2020, BeIN retained Premier League rights in the MENA region until 2025. The deal included Saudi Arabia, where the government was reportedly looking to launch a rival broadcaster that would snare rights to English soccer’s elite. The contract, for the 2022-2025 rights cycle, was understood to be worth around $500 million, or $166.7 million per season.
The deal was significant at the time as BeIN said that the Premier League “has done more than any other sports body in trying to end Saudi’s theft of world sport via its beoutQ operation.”
The piracy issue had led to BeIN deciding not to renew its deals for Formula One and Germany’s Bundesliga when those rights expired in 2018 and 2019, respectively. BeIN also renegotiated down the terms of the final season (2020-21) of its MENA rights contract with Serie A, with the Italian league having a contract to play its Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia.
| CYCLE | BROADCASTER | YEARS | TOTAL VALUE ($m) | ANNUAL VALUE ($m) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 to 2027-28 | BeIN | 3 | 746.8 | 248.9 |
| 2022-23 to 2024-25 | BeIN | 3 | 500 | 166.7 |
| 2019-20 to 2021-22 | BeIN | 3 | 516.1 | 172 |
| 2016-17 to 2018-19 | BeIN | 3 | 462.7 | 154.2 |
| 2013-14 to 2015-16 | BeIN | 3 | 320 | 106.7 |
| 2010-11 to 2012-13 | Abu Dhabi Media | 3 | 360 | 120 |
