beIN Media Group has signed a deal extending its Laliga broadcast rights, which will see the group’s flagship sports channel, beIN Sports, remain the home of Spanish football in 34 markets across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) until the end of the 2027-28 season and 2026-27 season respectively.

beIN has held the rights to Laliga since 2003 in MENA and 2015 in APAC. The new campaign will see Spain’s top league continue to be broadcast exclusively on beIN Sports for 16 consecutive seasons across 23 MENA markets.

The network will continue to have rights to all 380 league games and will see its media rights agreement expanded to bring Laliga back to beIN in Australia and New Zealand.

Yousef Al-Obaidly, Group CEO of beIN Media Group, said: “We are delighted to extend our contract with LALIGA with two significant multi-year deals across 34 countries.

“As long-term, committed partners of LALIGA, we are proud to help Spanish football grow worldwide through our world-class broadcasting and our significant and dependable investment.

“This major deal is further testament to beIN’s considered and consistent strategy to deliver growth as one of the leading sports, entertainment and media groups in the world.”

Javier Tebas, Laliga’s President, said: “At Laliga we always look for best-in-class partners to deliver Spanish football to fans everywhere.

“Our relationship with beIN has been essential for us in order to ensure people in MENA and APAC regions to be able to enjoy a unique competition as Laliga to the fullest. We are sure that the next seasons are going to be unparalleled ones for our fans across the region.”

Starting on August 15 and expected to feature a full round of 10 matches, some of the key stories ahead of the new season will be how quickly Real Madrid’s superstar new signing Kylian Mbappé can settle, whether FC Barcelona’s new German coach Hansi Flick can quickly influence his new club’s style of play, and if Girona can push on now after qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the club’s 93-year history.

Among the 380 games, of course, will be two El Clasico, in which European champions Real Madrid go head-to-head with their fiercest rivals, FC Barcelona.

As well as Mbappé, Spain’s top-flight is home to other world-class talent such as Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal, Nico Williams, and Martin Zubimendi.

The exclusive deal covers the following countries across MENA and APAC: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Australia, and New Zealand. beIN will also co-share LALIGA broadcast rights in Iraq with the regional platform 1001.

Audiovisual fraud is a scourge for the development of the audiovisual industry and the sports ecosystem, with a highly damaging impact on clubs, organisations, and broadcasters.

Thus, Laliga and beIN have jointly undertaken initiatives to combat audiovisual fraud, such as legal actions in Morocco and Bahrain aimed at blocking illegal streaming websites in the former and dismantling an illegal IPTV service in the latter. As well, periodic administrative blockades have been taken jointly with other right holders in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Similarly, there is constant communication between both entities to report all cases in the Horeca channel (hotels, restaurants and cafeterias) in Spain where decoders with contracts from other countries are identified, to proceed with their deactivation.

The anti-piracy teams of Laliga and beIN work closely to share intelligence information on common targets in the fight against piracy, new copyright regulations, and new piracy trends detected and are currently developing a joint project to combat those hosting services that do not process takedown requests (bulletproof hosting). – TradeArabia News Service