Sales 2023: €8.300 billion

Overview

The global sports and entertainment network of the beIN Media Group, headquartered in Doha, Qatar, was spun off from the news channel Al Jazeera in 2014 and is now the dominant pay-TV sports broadcaster in the Arab world. It is also gaining increasing importance outside of this sphere. beIN, which is closely linked to the Qatari royal family, now includes 60 channels broadcast on five continents, in 43 countries, and in seven languages.

General Information

Headquarters
beIN Media Group
PO Box 23231
Doha
Qatar
Website: http://www.beinmediagroup.com

Branches of trade: Sports and entertainment channels
Legal form: Private Company
Founding year: 2003 (as Al Jazeera Sport), 2012 (beIN SPORTS FRANCE), 2014 (rebranding as beIN MEDIA GROUP)

Basic economic data

	2021	2020	2019	2018
Sales (in million US dollars)*	9.900	9.900	8.600	8.600
Employees	3.700	3.700	3.700	3.700

* Estimates based on the number of worldwide subscribers (55 million)

Executives and Directors

Management:

• Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Group Chairman
• Yousef Al-Obaidly, Group Chief Executive Officer
• Tareq Zainal, Chief Financial & Human Resources Officer
• Ziad Hammoud, Chief Strategy and Investment Officer
• Mohammad Al-Subaie, Acting CEO of beIN MENA
• Mohammed Al-Bader, Managing Director of MENA Channels
• Israel Esteban, Chief Technology Officer
• Daniel Markham, Chief of Staff
• Caroline Guenneteau, Deputy General Counsel
• Richard Verow, Chief Sports Officer

History

Without the news channel Al Jazeera, founded in 1996 by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, then Emir of Qatar, the Arab Spring would probably not have happened – nor would the world's largest TV sports rights holder. beIN was launched in 2003 as a sports subsidiary of Al Jazeera. Then, in June 2012, beIN SPORTS was created, initially in France (because there were no independent sports channels there yet). In January 2014, the Al Jazeera sports channels were renamed beIN Media Group, a holding company for beIN SPORTS' activities. For the Qatari royal family, the strategy of "sport as an economic factor" was the logical one after the end of the oil age: Two-thirds of the population in the Arab world is under 30, and statistically, there are more cell phones than people. beIN acquired broadcasting rights for various premium sporting events, including soccer, American football, tennis, basketball, volleyball, handball, motorsports, rugby, cycling, athletics, and more. On November 1, 2015, beIN expanded its portfolio to include films, general entertainment, factual, and children's content. In March 2016, to further diversify, the company acquired the Miramax studio ("Pulp Fiction"), co-founded in 1979 by now-convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein and sold to Walt Disney in 1993. In 2019, beIN sold a 49 percent stake in Miramax to ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) for $375 million. This gave Paramount Pictures access to the more than 700 titles in the MIRAMAX film library. 

At the same time, beIN continued to expand its international pay-TV empire through spectacular acquisitions. In 2014, for example, beIN bought the Australian branch of the Irish sports broadcaster Setanta and renamed it beIN Sports. This was followed in 2016 by the purchase of the leading Turkish pay-TV network Digiturk. To provide its international broadcasters with exclusive sports content as the "ESPN" of the Arab world (and beyond), CEO Yousef Al-Obaidly spared no expense and spent a total of $15 billion on broadcasting rights, including for the upcoming European and World Cups, as well as the Champions League and Copa America in football, as well as for Formula 1, rugby, boxing, and NBA basketball rights. And in an "exciting new deal" (beIN), beIN SPORTS also secured exclusive rights to Bundesliga matches in July 2021: until 2025 and for France and Turkey.

management

CEO Nasser Al-Khelaifi has been familiar with the emirate's rulers since his career as a professional tennis player and member of the Qatari Davis Cup team in the 1990s. Since 2011, he has headed the investment company Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), founded in 2005, which acquired the French football club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) for approximately €30 million (plus €20 million in debt). Al-Khelaifi became PSG president in October 2011. He became beIN CEO in 2013.

In November 2013, the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, appointed him "Minister without Portfolio." He is also a member of the FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee and the European Club Association's delegate to the UEFA Executive Committee. In 2016, the sports newspaper "L'Equipe" named him "the most powerful man in French football" (ahead of national coach Didier Deschamps and Zinedine Zidane). Nasser Al-Khelaifi is also President of the Qatar Tennis Federation and Vice President of the Asian Tennis Federation (West Asia).

However, even he cannot avoid the conflicts with the judiciary that frequently arise in the industry. In October 2017, Swiss courts opened an investigation against him on suspicion of private corruption in the awarding of television rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups. The accusation: Al-Khelaifi allegedly offered former FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke a five-million-euro villa in Sardinia in return for awarding the World Cup rights to beIN. Al-Khelaifi was acquitted in October 2020. The public prosecutor appealed the verdict, but in June 2022, Al-Khelaifi was acquitted for a second time.

Business Units

beIN Sports broadcasts on 22 channels in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia. In addition to building the beIN premium sports network, its strategy is to develop sports and entertainment production. The beIN Media Group is divided into seven divisions.

– The sports and entertainment channels of beIN MENA (Middle East North Africa) can be received via DTH satellite, IPTV and OTT streaming (beIN CONNECT).

– beIN SPORTS France is a French sports channel based in Boulogne-Billancourt, founded in 2012. It offers programs including the French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Super Lig, FA Cup, Men's and Women's IHF World Championships, NFL Football, ATP Tennis, and more. Available via cable, satellite, and ADSL.

– beIN SPORTS Asia Pacific (Singapore) broadcasts 14 beIN sports programs in eleven countries (Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor, Singapore) in four languages. 

– beIN SPORTS North America (Miami) has broadcast beIN SPORTS content in the US and Canada since August 2012, via nine of the ten major cable/satellite providers and streaming with beIN SPORTS CONNECT. 

– beIN Digiturk (Istanbul) is Turkey’s leading pay TV provider with 184 channels and approximately 3.5 million Turkish subscribers, founded in 1999 and acquired by beIN Media Group in August 2016. 

– beIN UK (London) has been responsible for worldwide rights acquisition and program sales since 2014.

MIRAMAX, the film production company founded in 1979 by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, was acquired by the beIN Media Group in March 2016 as part of a program diversification effort. With it, a film library with over 700 titles, 278 Oscar nominations, and 68 Oscar wins, including the Best Picture winners "The English Patient," "Chicago," "Shakespeare in Love," and "No Country for Old Men."

Current developments

With its vast reservoir of sports and film rights, nothing should stand in the way of beIN's continued global triumph. If it weren't for state-sponsored piracy, presumably with the help of Qatar's arch-enemy Saudi Arabia, a pirate channel called "BeoutQ" is spreading rapidly in the Arab world, illegally broadcasting beIN programming without paying the costly licensing rights.

beIN Media believes the "BeoutQ" signal originated from the Saudi satellite provider Arabsat, in which the Saudi government is a major investor. The satellite signal is no longer available, but modified IPTV boxes are still being used by millions. In light of the more than $1 billion in economic damage, beIN and Qatar are trying to pressure sports rights holders and sponsors to stop holding major events in Saudi Arabia.

At the end of June 2022, it was announced that at least four illegal Egyptian sports channels had been shut down. Goalarab.com, Yalla-Shoot-7sry.com, yalla-shoot.us, and yallashoot-news.com: In May 2022, these four websites attracted 1.8 million users in Egypt and over 4.8 million users worldwide, watching content stolen from beIN SPORTS.