A collapsed deal between Fox
Sports and media rights agency MP & Silva
has fuelled speculation that a new 24 Sport Pay TV channel could launch in
Australia in 2014.
As previously reported on
this website, On the 27th of September Fox Sports announced it had signed a two-year deal with
MP & Silva to broadcast Italian Serie A Football within Australia.
However the deal fell through only
three days later with MP & Silvia revoking the broadcast rights.
A senior industry executive
working in the Oceania region now says that he believes the Serie A rights
could have been taken back by MP & Silva with a view to a possible launch
of a new Australian Pay Television sports service under the banner of BeIN
Sport, the pay-television broadcaster owned by Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
MP & Silva recently sealed a partnership
with BeIN Sport to launch a series of branded channels in southeast Asia.
Services have already been rolled out in Indonesia and the Philippines, and
BeIN Sport channels will soon launch in Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan. BeIN Sport
also has a channel in the US and markets itself as “America’s Home of Soccer”
The Australian market was poised
for the launch of a BeIN Sport-branded service as early as 2011. An Australian
trademark for BeIN Sport was registered in May of 2012. Recent reports suggest
a service could be up and running in early 2014.
Under a deal that Foxtel signed
with the ACCC in 2002, Foxtel would be forced to carry BeIN Sport on its
network. A similar situation occurred when Setanta Sports launched in Australia
in 2007.
Additional Info – Sportcal
