Industry Shorts: Uefa, Livescore, Formula E
A World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel has ruled that Saudi Arabia supported TV channel BeoutQ by failing to stop their pirate sports broadcasts.
The channel is accused of pirating Qatari channel BeIN Sports’ content across properties such as the Premier League and UEFA Champions League.
UEFA responded the ruling saying: “UEFA welcomes the World Trade Organisation report and its conclusions. What is clear is that beoutQ’s broadcasts constitute piracy of UEFA’s matches and as such, are illegal.
“BeoutQ was hosted on frequencies transmitted by Arabsat and was promoted and carried out by individuals and entities subject to Saudi Arabia’s territorial jurisdiction.
“Today’s ruling shows clearly that no-one involved in audio-visual piracy should consider themselves above the rule of law.”
Real-time sports updates and results provider, LiveScore, will launch a streaming service with rights to all remaining matches in Italy’s Serie A season after striking a deal with broadcaster Premier Sports.
The deal, led by Saran Media Group on behalf of LiveScore and agreed with Premier Sports, also sees LiveScore secure the rights to live-stream one third of all remaining fixtures in Portugal’s Primeira Liga.
Formula E has announced that it will return to competition with a series of six races to conclude the season.
The all-electric series’ Season 6 will continue with three double-headers across a space of nine days at the Berlin Tempelhof track, starting from 5th August and ending on 13th August across multiple track layouts.
The action will conclude the season, which has already seen five races take place. All races in Berlin will happen behind closed doors, while a champion will be crowned after the final race.
Sport Industry Spotlight is casting a light on the industry itself, reaching out to different organisations to create new, bespoke sessions with timely and exciting panels and topics for the sector.
A special one-off Sport Industry Spotlight will take place as part of Beyond Sport’s Workshop Week on Thursday 18th June, welcoming an expert panel to take on the topic of ‘Fan Engagement in a Post-Covid World’, including:
Christophe Dubi, Olympic Games Executive Director – IOC
Sanchit Garg, Senior Vice President & Global Head of Sales – ONE Championship
Laura Lefton, Senior Director of Club Business Development – NFL
Melissa Schiller, Senior Director of Corporate Responsibility – NFL
Find out more information and book your session here.
The West Indies cricket team will wear kits made by UK brand Castore during the country’s tour of England in the summer of 2020.
The pair have entered into a three-year deal which will see Castore become Cricket West Indies’ Official Team Kit and Merchandise Provider. The brand will supply training kits as well as matchday apparel for all Test, One Day International, and T20 formats.
Castore recently entered into a kit deal with Scottish Premiership football team Rangers, and also provides matchwear for Andy Murray through a partnership between the three-time Grand Slam champion and the brand.
Southampton have signed a deal with cloud-based ticketing solutions provider SecuTix, which will become the Premier League club’s new ticketing technology partner.
Following a competitive pitch, SecuTix will handle both ticketing and hospitality through its SecuTix 360° platform and will deliver a new ticketing platform from the beginning of the 2020/21 season.
Sports data and intelligence provider Sportradar has announced a partnership with the Tipsarevic Tennis Academy for the duration of the Eastern European Championship 2020, which is taking place in Belgrade, Serbia.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Sportradar has worked with its partners to bring back live tennis and its involvement in the Eastern European Championship follows recent successes with the likes of the Tennis Point Exhibition Series – the Austrian and German Pro Series featuring world No.3 Dominic Thiem – and the International Tennis Series.
The Eastern European Championship has 352 matches scheduled to take place over a six week period and will see the data company provide a range of live tennis content solutions directly from the event.
Sportradar will gather the data production for all matches with data collection software used by the umpire to score matches, and then transmit data back to the company.
UK Coaching has appointed Kristal Ireland as its new Director of Digital.
Ireland joins the organisation having worked across brands such as Virgin, Npower, The National Trust, the NHS, and Welcome to Yorkshire, and will bring a wide-ranging expertise to a newly-created role that has been designed to ‘add leadership and strategic direction’ to the charitable organisation’s digital output.
