Spanish soccer’s top-flight LaLiga competition has agreed a new long-term exclusive media rights deal in Pakistan and Bangladesh with nascent OTT streaming service Begin.
The five-year agreement will begin with the upcoming 2025-26 campaign and will run through the 2029-30 season, with Begin showing every fixture from the top-flight LaLiga, as well as the second-tier LaLiga2 tournament.
Go deeper with GlobalData
From 2026-27 onward, the broadcast partnership will extend to the Sri Lanka market also, as Begin expands its profile in South Asia.
UAE-based Begin replaces Dubai-based Galaxy Racer, which Sportcal understands parted ways with LaLiga only one year into their six-year partnership due to distribution-related issues, before Begin picked up the associated rights.
On the new partnership, Begin chief executive Jonathan Mark said: “By providing a legal, scalable, and monetizable platform for premium leagues, we’re enabling rights holders, content producers, and brands to engage fans with confidence and scale.
“Our collaboration lays the groundwork for a structured, future-facing ecosystem that delivers secure and commercially viable sports content, aligned with Begin’s long-term ambition to support outreach programs, develop local talent, and help and uplift a sustainable football talent pool across the region.”
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataPart of the appeal of Begin as a rightsholder, its aim of combating video piracy, which is widespread in markets such as Pakistan.
Speaking to Sportcal exclusively in 2024, Mark commented: “When you take care of piracy, so there is no [illegal] visibility, all of this effort is obviously targeted to one goal in growing our subscriber base exponentially, because the EPL has a huge following in this part of the world.”
While many may not have chosen to enter such a widely pirated industry such as elite sport, Mark says there had been a gap in the Pakistan market after previous sublicensees backed out that the service is now looking to exploit and, coupled with a crackdown on piracy, will help the service’s user base grow.
“We are a one-stop solution “where we’re providing all the games at a very nominal cost as opposed to what you might have to pay [through illegal streaming services] or to access sites through a VPN, so the numbers are very promising.”
Begin and launched in June 2024, initially securing licensing rights for non-sports entertainment content from the NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures Entertainment media giants.
Its first major sports rights splash came last August, when it secured the Pakistani streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) rights to broadcast English soccer’s elite tier Premier League (EPL) for 2024-25.
Then, in October, it agreed a four-year broadcast deal with the US women’s golf’s LPGA, before adding to that in 2025 with the US Women’s Open and Women’s PGA Championship major events.
During that time, in April 2025, Begin also secured the domestic rights to Twenty20 cricket’s Pakistan Super League.
Where the LaLiga rights go in India has already been confirmed, with major players FanCode snatching up what is an attractive prospect thanks to the global notoriety of the division's top clubs, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid.
