Blog: WAU

Joris Evers, La Liga’s head of communications, confirmed last week that the rights holder has withdrawn its tender for broadcast rights to Spanish soccer’s premier league in the UK and Ireland after failing to receive any acceptable bids, due by the 25 th July .

On July 18 th , Google-owned YouTube livestreamed the first of its exclusive Major League Baseball (MLB) matches, acquired through a partnership announced with the MLB at the end of April 2019 . YouTube’s first exclusive live game distribution deal with the MLB covers 13 games during the second half of the MLB’s 2019 regular season.

Cord cutting and “the attention economy” are the landscaping trends reshaping everything video in 2019, and sports television – despite its reliably existent fanbase – is no exception. New sports proposition streaming video on demand (SVOD) entrants face hefty competition on all sides, from regionally established SVOD services with more varied offerings to tech majors waiting in the wings to buy up the biggest rights before moving onto the scene.

DAZN, the sports-centric streaming service which made headlines in 2018 with several high-profile rights acquisitions , and according to documents seen by SportsPro Media , has managed to dramatically reduce its debt burden by 93% in the year up to 2018.

Disney finally unveiled to investors during a presentation yesterday its much anticipated direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service Disney+, announcing a November 12 th 2019 launch . Disney+ will be an ad-free subscription launching in the US at $6.

The English Premier League (EPL) is now back on the market with its rights for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam following its deal with Facebook collapsing. Back in July 2018 , the social media giant acquired the exclusive rights to stream 380 EPL matches in the Asian territories for $265 million over three seasons, outbidding traditional networks BeIN Sports and Fox Sports Asia in the process.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted on ESPN+ this past weekend, featuring the highly touted championship fight, which saw Henry Cejudo knockout current Bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw in just 32 seconds to retain his Flyweight title.

Pandora is in trouble, as explained by the consistently excellent Tim Ingham at Music Business Worldwide , after losing a billion dollars over the last four years and monthly active users (MAU) fell to 73.