LONDON: Peter Hutton, director of global live sports partnerships and programming, Facebook, has made his first big acquisition since joining the social giant from Eurosport, where he was the CEO.
According to UK’s The Times, Facebook has agreed a £200 million ($264.4 million) deal to broadcast matches in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 2019 to 2022, topping bids from BeIN Sports and Fox Sports Asia. That includes all 380 matches in 2019.
Facebook has previously livestreamed MLS and La Liga matches on its platform, but the new deal represents its biggest push yet into top level sport.
Facebook’s acquisition follows a recent three-year media rights deal between Amazon and the Premier League in the United Kingdom which granted e-commerce behemoth the rights to broadcast 20 live matches per season between 2019 and 2022.
For Facebook, the Premier League deal marks a turnaround after the company last year failed in its attempt to bid for IPL rights in India.
