The International Swimming League (ISL) has announced beIN SPORTS as a broadcaster for the 2020 regular season and semi-finals for season 2.
beIN SPORTS will broadcast the events live in France, Turkey, 24 countries in the Middle East & North Africa, and 10 countries in the Asia Pacific. Asia will join the ISL this season via the expansion Tokyo Frog Kings franchise. Last year, only 2 Asian swimmers participated in the ISL: Japan’s Daiya Seto (in the final only, representing Energy Standard) and Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey.
Terms of the agreement were not announced, but so far seems to be limited to just the regular season and semi-finals in Budapest for the 2020 season.
beIN joins CBS Sports as announced broadcasters of the events so far, with CBS Sports signing a multi-year deal to run most of the meets live in the United States, with the exception of the season opener on October 16.
Last season, EuroSport was announced as holding ‘exclusive rights’ to the event in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The deal with beIN would overlap with that arrangement, both in Europe and Asia-Pacific, implying that the 2 year deal with EuroSport has been altered for the 2nd season of the league.
A spokesperson for the ISL says that while the Eurosports deal was a 2-year deal, the 2nd year was an option that was not activated.
beIN Sports is a global network of sports channels that has limited operations in Europe, broadcasting only in France. They also have networks in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The group is part of the Al Jazeera Media Network based out of Qatar. Due to geopolitical tensions between Qatar and other Arab nations, the network has at different times been barred from operations in parts of the Middle East, including currently being banned in Saudi Arabia.
The 2020 regular season and semifinals will run across a 5-week season in Budapest, Hungary
Is there a full list of broadcasters and the countries they service anywhere?
There is not.
We know CBS In the US
BBC in the UK
CBC in Canada
beIN as listed above (no further specifics were given)
That’s it.
No word on Australia, which I assume you’re keen on hearing. Based on my outsider’s analysis of Australian media’s approach to swimming the last few years, I would suspect that nobody is going to pick it up. We still don’t have more details about the announced OTT service either, but that is perhaps going to be an option for ‘the rest of the world.’
Yeah I’ll be surprised if anyone picks it up with all of the Australians out. I mostly watched CBC last year anyway because I was only watching replays and Seven took way to long to make them available.
So we won’t be able to watch in the Uk then?
So far, no broadcaster has been announced in the UK.
While a week out seems like a last-minute thing…compared to some of the deals last year, this is actually a fairly early announcement, so there’s still a chance they’ll scramble and find someone in other European countries to carry it.