Pay-television broadcaster BeIN Sports has announced it has acquired the French broadcasting rights to the upcoming UEFA Euro 2020 international football championship.
The deal, sees BeIN secure live coverage of all 51 games from Euro 2020, with the Qatari-based broadcaster also securing exclusive broadcasting rights to 28 of those matches.
Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA’s marketing director, stated: “In all our broadcast partners we look for broadcast innovation and the highest quality of programming, and BeIN is undoubtedly a flag-bearer in both regards.
“With European football continuing to be such an important sporting spectacle in France, we couldn’t be happier to have BeIN as our official broadcast partner to help us deliver UEFA Euro 2020 to fans across the country.”
As well as live match coverage, the deal covers linear and digital output, and also includes highlights, near-live and on-demand clips as well as other support programming.
Although no official figures have yet been released, French daily sports newspaper L’Equipe has reported that the deal is worth in the region of €38m, a figure which marks a near 40% decrease when compared to the €60m BeIN reportedly paid for the Euro 2016 broadcasting rights.
Yousef Al-Obaidly, BeIN Media Group chief executive, added: “With its new 24-team format, this year’s European Championship is bigger and better than ever before – so we are delighted to extend our long-term partnership with Uefa and continue to bring the very best of sport to our valued subscriber-base.
“We continue to bid proportionately for premium sport, and this deal to broadcast Euro 2020 adds to our unrivalled library of premium football and other sports content in France, reinforcing BeIN Sports’ long-term position as the one of the leading sports broadcasters in the world.”
The deal marks the latest agreement between UEFA and the broadcaster in France and follows on from BeIN securing the majority of exclusive French television rights to the UEFA Champions League for the 2021-2024 cycle.
Euro 2020 is set to open on 12 June with the final scheduled to kick off one month later on 12 July.
