Proximus has followed rival Belgian telecoms firm Telenet in returning as a broadcaster of domestic soccer’s top-flight Pro League through a distribution deal with sports streaming service DAZN.
From the start of the 2026-27 season, Proximus will carry the DAZN channels and app, offering live coverage of all matches in the Pro League.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Proximus customers with a ‘Pickx Sports’ or ‘All-in’ subscription package will have access to DAZN.
In addition, Proximus will make two matches per matchday from the currently ongoing season-ending champions play-offs available to all its Pickx customers from this weekend at no additional cost.
The new Pro League season will be available from August 7. DAZN's offering will be broadcast via four linear channels on Proximus: two channels dedicated to Belgian soccer and two channels featuring international competitions, in both Dutch and French.
Content that is not available on the linear channels can be accessed by Pickx Sports customers via the DAZN app, which will be integrated into the Pickx Sports package over the course of the upcoming season.
With the return of DAZN content, Proximus is set to increase its subscription fees from next season but will maintain the current prices of €14.99 ($17.55) per month for the Pickx Sports option and €38.99 per month for the All-in package.
Pro League content will also be available to customers via Scarlet, the low-cost telecom brand owned by Proximus.
Jim Casteele, chief consumer market and AI officer at Proximus, said: “I'm very pleased that football lovers can once again watch the Jupiler Pro League through our Pickx Sports offer. We fully understand that the past months have been challenging for our football fans.
“That is why we are delighted to be able to offer the decisive Pro League matches to all our customers. In addition, it was important for us to be able to broadcast the Pro League via linear television channels, as not everyone is familiar with the latest digital streaming technologies.”
Telenet announced a similar distribution deal earlier this month, but its contract will cover the remainder of DAZN’s current rights period, which runs through the 2029-30 campaign.
DAZN recently announced it will cover the Pro League until at least the end of the 2026-27 season despite its attempts to terminate the long-term domestic rights contract less than a year into the deal.
The development follows months of uncertainty over the OTT platform’s long-term contract with the top-flight Pro League.
Last November, DAZN’s five-year contract with the league came to an extremely premature end, with the deal only taking effect in late July, due to the platform failing to secure at least two other distribution partners for its coverage.
According to the terms of the original deal through which DAZN secured Pro League rights for the 2025-30 cycle, it was required to guarantee wider distribution through two or more other partners, who would be able to bring action from the 16-team Pro League to a wider audience.
However, after months of fruitless negotiations between DAZN and several telecommunications operators in the country (including Telenet, Proximus, and Orange), no agreement was reached, meaning the essential terms of the contract between DAZN and the Pro League were not met.
As a result, matches this season have only been available via the DAZN platform.
Following DAZN's announcement that the contract was null and void, the Pro League resorted to legal action. In January, DAZN was ordered to continue covering the league until the end of the 2025-26 season following a legal ruling from the Belgian Arbitration and Mediation Centre (CEPANI).
The streaming giant was also instructed to pay the remaining money due for the rights through to the end of 2026, having not paid these fees between November and January.
As part of the CEPANI ruling, the body also stated that the streaming heavyweight must reopen negotiations over wider coverage with telecoms firms.
Proximus described negotiations with DAZN as “intensive” but said it “adopted a constructive approach to reach a sustainable agreement and ensure that Belgian football remains widely and easily accessible to all sports fans, including those who are less familiar with new technologies and simply wish to follow their favourite team at home via linear television channels.”
Before this season, the telco had been a Pro League broadcaster in Belgium for more than two decades, first showing the league in 2005-06.
