MBC Group, a Saudi-owned free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster, has secured the rights to broadcast this year's FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) men's soccer tournament in Egypt. This comes after striking a sublicensing deal with DAZN, the global sports streaming service and exclusive global rights holder of the CWC.
The agreement will see all matches from this year’s tournament broadcast on FTA channel MBC Egypt. The tournament is set to kick off on June 14 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami and features top clubs worldwide including Egypt’s Al-Ahly – current CAF Champions League champions.
This sublicensing deal is not a first for DAZN. It follows an agreement last month with US-based Spanish language media giant TelevisaUnivision to show 18 matches across Univision, UniMás, and TUDN in the US. In December last year, FIFA announced DAZN as the tournament’s exclusive global rights holder in a deal reportedly worth around $1 billion. This arrangement allows all 63 matches from an expanded 32-team field to be live-streamed and free-to-view globally on DAZN in multiple languages.
Sublicensing opportunities
FIFA and DAZN had stated that their agreement included potential sublicensing opportunities to local free-to-air linear broadcast networks when announcing their partnership.
Before this development with OTT platforms like DAZN stepping up, FIFA faced challenges securing a broadcasting partner due to controversies surrounding extra games and workload for clubs and players which led many traditional media giants unwilling to pick up the rights. Looking ahead at future tournaments such as the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup will see changes including continental governing bodies receiving multiple team slots apart from Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
The sublicensing deal comes a week after SURJ Sports Investments, the sports arm of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF), finalized a significant investment into DAZN worth a reported $1 billion. This 10% stake in the business will lead to the creation of a media joint venture, DAZN MENA, focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Netgem TV adds FIFA+
In other related news, FIFA has agreed on a content deal with Netgem TV platform to add its FIFA+ streaming platform to its service. The agreement will provide Netgem TV viewers across Europe free access to FIFA+, starting with the UK and Ireland this month followed by France and other regions.
Sylvain Thevenot, chief commercial and customer officer at Netgem, said:
“This collaboration reinforces our dedication to providing a comprehensive and engaging entertainment experience, with a focus on delivering high-quality content at no extra cost to our audience, and further enhances the value we bring to our operator partners.”
FIFA+ content includes archived FIFA World Cup fixtures, behind-the-scenes content, documentaries, and global soccer highlights packages. Last month also saw UAE-based media and entertainment business Evision striking a deal with FIFA to host FIFA+ as an ad-supported streaming television channel on its Starz On service.
