Al Jazeera sets goal of Aussie sports channel
QATAR-BASED broadcaster Al Jazeera is believed to be preparing to launch an Australian sports channel early next year, after local industry executives said it had secured the broadcast rights for Italian football league Serie A.
Insiders said they believed Al Jazeera was considering a local sports service via BeIN Sport, its global sports network.
The mooted launch comes after a broadcast deal enabling Fox Sports Australia to show Serie A collapsed.
Fox Sports, which is owned by News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, announced three weeks ago that it had acquired the Serie A rights.
But Fox Sports executives learnt after announcing the agreement that the distributor holding the rights sold the Australian television rights twice.
The Serie A rights had already been sold as part of a large multi-territory deal to a broadcaster thought to be Al Jazeera.
After international media rights company MP & Silva struck this deal, it then sold the rights again to Fox Sports.
Fox Sports, which believed it held the exclusive rights, was informed three days after the media announcement that it did not.
Fox Sports chief executive Patrick Delany said it was “very uncommon” for rights disputes to occur in this way, and attributed the confusion to a “mix up at their end”.
“Italian football is a not a big property for us, but it has a very passionate fan base in Australia,” Delany told The Australian.
“For us it was another brick in our football coverage, but I understand the fervent passion of Italian football fans. We’re very disappointed that we cannot offer coverage of Serie A.”
Fox Sports retains live broadcast rights to Spanish league La Liga for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons: this deal was announced on September 27, when Fox Sports said it would show Serie A.
Delany said Fox Sports was also able to offer football fans coverage of every game of the Hyundai A-League live, every game of the Barclays Premier League, and the UEFA Champions League live on ESPN.
“We will welcome any opportunity to enter the market for Serie A rights in the future,” he added.
This means that the only way to watch live Serie A coverage in Australia is with Italian-language commentary on the Rai International channel via satellite platforms.
MP & Silva recently struck a partnership with BeIN Sport to launch a series of branded channels in southeast Asia including the Indonesia and Philippines markets, with Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan set to follow.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/al-jazeera-sets-goal-of-aussie-sports-channel/story-fn91v9q3-1226744097004
lets hope Al Jazeera get the shit together and start up soon and available on Foxtel