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It's not official yet but it might come to that because the English Premiere League driven by greed only, has granted the rights in Middle East and North Africa to a company called MP & Silva (no relation to our David, I hope !) who have no broadcasting TV channels !!

For last 3 seasons the EPL (Or is it now BPL) has been covered by Abu Dhabi Sport who did an excellent job at a very reasonable subscription fee.

Now MP & Silva are in the process of flogging the broadcasting rights to any TV network in the region who can pay the reportedly outrageous fees they are asking for. With the BPL new season kick off only a few weeks away, we still don't know on which Sports Channels we will be able to see it, if at all.

I guess I have to make contingency plans to find and subscribe to a good streaming site. Any suggestions ?

Dubaimancityfan wrote:It's not official yet but it might come to that because the English Premiere League driven by greed only, has granted the rights in Middle East and North Africa to a company called MP & Silva (no relation to our David, I hope !) who have no broadcasting TV channels !!

For last 3 seasons the EPL (Or is it now BPL) has been covered by Abu Dhabi Sport who did an excellent job at a very reasonable subscription fee.

Now MP & Silva are in the process of flogging the broadcasting rights to any TV network in the region who can pay the reportedly outrageous fees they are asking for. With the BPL new season kick off only a few weeks away, we still don't know on which Sports Channels we will be able to see it, if at all.

I guess I have to make contingency plans to find and subscribe to a good streaming site. Any suggestions ?

I share your concerns mate, but my guess (and hope) is that It will end up with AD Sports again, its fuck all use to MP&S paying for the rights only for nobody to broadcast and generate the revenue required to pay them their royalties.

If they have overpaid and are holding out, thats their problem, but they will have to settle on whats on the table eventually, and someone will pick this up the week before the season starts or maybe the week after the season starts when the stakes have been really upped by the broadcasters by them holding out on a deal.

MP&S ultimately need a deal more than the broadcasters otherwise they are sat with a white elephant.

AD Sports have all the infrastructure and experience in place so I still make them favourites, possibly with Saudi sports having an interest too

Im_Spartacus wrote:

Dubaimancityfan wrote:It's not official yet but it might come to that because the English Premiere League driven by greed only, has granted the rights in Middle East and North Africa to a company called MP & Silva (no relation to our David, I hope !) who have no broadcasting TV channels !!

For last 3 seasons the EPL (Or is it now BPL) has been covered by Abu Dhabi Sport who did an excellent job at a very reasonable subscription fee.

Now MP & Silva are in the process of flogging the broadcasting rights to any TV network in the region who can pay the reportedly outrageous fees they are asking for. With the BPL new season kick off only a few weeks away, we still don't know on which Sports Channels we will be able to see it, if at all.

I guess I have to make contingency plans to find and subscribe to a good streaming site. Any suggestions ?

I share your concerns mate, but my guess (and hope) is that It will end up with AD Sports again, its fuck all use to MP&S paying for the rights only for nobody to broadcast and generate the revenue required to pay them their royalties.

If they have overpaid and are holding out, thats their problem, but they will have to settle on whats on the table eventually, and someone will pick this up the week before the season starts or maybe the week after the season starts when the stakes have been really upped by the broadcasters by them holding out on a deal.

MP&S ultimately need a deal more than the broadcasters otherwise they are sat with a white elephant.

AD Sports have all the infrastructure and experience in place so I still make them favourites, possibly with Saudi sports having an interest too

I suppose they will have to make a last minute deal with one of the candidate networks (AD, Jazeera or OSN) who are smartly holding out for now and putting MP&S under pressure.
I also hope that it will be AD Sport (our Sheikh might have some influence there !) as they do a good job. If Jazeera Sport get it (although I subscribe to it) I don't know how they will fit it in their congested schedules as they already cover the Italian, Spanish, French and some other leagues plus the Champs and Europa Leagues and FA and League Cup.

The good news is that there will be 5x more and quality streams because of the NBC offering here in America. And wiziwig is a great resource

AD Sports have done an amazing job. I would want them to retain if they ultimately (indirectly) end up with the rights again.

However, when they got the rights in the first time from Showtime/ShowSports...they equally were a bit of a clusterfuck outside the UAE with no real distribution network elsewhere. I know it was almost Xmas before they got their act together and started selling decoders carrying the PL elsewhere in the MENA region. So, someone buying it with no "channels" doesn't really surprise me....that kind of shit ceased to surprise me in that region

bigblue wrote:The good news is that there will be 5x more and quality streams because of the NBC offering here in America. And wiziwig is a great resource

Its tough in the middle east though, all internet traffic is routed under the med via Alexandria up towards athens, and there are frequently problems such as cable failure, traffic issues etc, which means that getting a stream in the middle east from a source in London is bad enough, the US is a really tough and at peak times or for big games it will be virtually impossible

Here in KSA, whilst we have predominantly US channels for english speaking TV, that doesnt include any sports channels, and I think thats the same for the rest of the region from what I've seen on my travels, so without a MENA/GCC broadcaster, there is little likelihood of useable or reliable streams.

However, in the short term, if there is an infrastructure issue with a new provider like there was with the AD decoders, the good news is that its highly likely to be sold as an internet service (As AD sports is), and the short throw of the source for the stream should mean decent free streams, and excellent quality paid streams.