Nasser al-Khelaifi, director of pay-television broadcaster Al Jazeera Sports, has said the company is exploring launching channels in every market in Europe, and is currently weighing up a bid for the English Premier League’s domestic rights.
“There is a lot of opportunity in the world for sports channels,” said al-Khelaifi on Thursday, in an interview with Reuters.
“We are going to look at all the opportunities in Europe. We are going to study each market one by one, and if there is room for another channel, then we will go.”
Al Jazeera will launch two pay-television channels in France next month – BeIN Sport 1, which will launch on June 1, and BeIN Sport 2, which will launch on July 28 – followed by two similarly-branded networks in the US in August.
Al-Khelaifi said the US BeIN Sports channels will focus on international, rather than American, sports. One of two channels will be broadcast in Spanish.
“The rationale there is completely different than what we are doing in France,” he said. “It’s not about competing with ESPN or Fox; it’s more of a niche channel featuring international sports.”
On the Premier League, he said: “We received the tender as others have and we are looking at it. We are studying whether there is room for another sports channel there.” The Premier League domestic live and highlights rights tender, for the three seasons from 2013-14 to 2015-16, was launched this month.