DOHA: Qatar’s BeIN Sports said Friday it had decided not to renew a contract for the rights to broadcast Formula One in the Middle East and North Africa, accusing the sport’s owners Liberty Media of only “paying lip service” to BeIN’s concerns in its ongoing fight against Saudi state backed pirate broadcaster beoutQ.
The previous five-year deal, for which the region’s biggest sports network signed a five-year deal with F1 in 2014 for an estimated €170 million, expired at the end of last season. The 21-race 2019 world championship flags off in Australia on March 17.
In a statement, beIN’s managing director for the region, Tom Keaveny, said: “A rights-holder’s stance on beoutQ’s piracy – in other words whether they’re taking legal action, making a public stand and doing everything within their power to combat the industrial-scale theft of their rights – is a critical factor that we’re now considering when bidding.
“We pay enormous amounts for media rights, but the natural consequence of Saudi Arabia’s piracy is that those rights cannot be protected so we will pay less for those rights in the future, in particular to the rights-holders who pay only lip service to combating beoutQ.
“We have been warning of the very real commercial consequences of beoutQ’s theft of world sport and entertainment for almost two years now, yet the piracy continues with impunity every day and represents an existential threat to the economic model of the sports and entertainment industry. The international community must take decisive action to bring this state-supported piracy to an immediate end.”
BeIN’s decision to walk away from F1 is more than likel Liberty Media, which paid €3.5 billion for the sport in 2017, with the intention of growing it beyond its European heartlands.
One can’t get away from the politics behind it either. Liberty Media being an American concern, when push came to shove, the media conglomerate swung with the Saudis seeing as the conservative kingdom is a longstanding US strategic ally in the region.
Caught out on the matter, an F1 spokesperon would only state: “We are currently finalising a deal with a broadcaster for the region and we will confirm the details when we can.”
The message Liberty is sending out is loud and clear: “Piracy may be bad, but some pirates are more equal than others.”
