BeIN strikes long-term IHF World Championships deal in France

French pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports has struck a deal for the next four men’s and women’s International Handball World Championships.

The deal will cover the World Championships in 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025. The agreement was reached with the Lagardère Sports agency, which is selling the IHF’s global media rights over the period following the termination of the federation’s deal with the MP & Silva agency.

BeIN Media Group held global media rights to the IHF’s 2015 and 2017 men’s and women’s World Championships. It exploited rights to these World Championships in France via its beIN Sports channels. The French men’s and women’s teams both won their respective tournaments in 2017.

Local listed events legislation mandates that a final of the men’s or women’s World Championships with French participation must be available free-to-air.

The 2019 men’s World Championships will run from January 10-27 and will be hosted in Germany and Denmark. The beIN deal follows another agreement struck by Lagardère earlier this week – in Germany, with public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

French newspaper L’Équipe also reported that beIN is close to a deal in France to extend its hold on domestic handball rights. It said beIN will shortly announce a new deal to retain its hold on rights to the domestic league as well as the Trophée des Champions and the Coupe de la Ligue competitions until 2023.

BeIN currently has a five-season deal with the Ligue Nationale de Handball, from 2014-15 to 2018-19.