Facebook Win £200m Broadcast Rights Battle to Show Premier League Matches in Parts of Asia
Social media giants Facebook have won the rights to broadcast Premier League games in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 2019 onward.
This is the first deal agreed upon between the Premier League and Facebook, and it's reportedly worth £200m over three years.
Rights to broadcast games in the UK have been dominated by Sky and BT, but Amazon also recently managed to reach a groundbreaking agreement with the Premier League.
The online retailer will live stream 20 matches per season from 2019, at no extra cost to existing Amazon Prime members in the UK.
It's understood that Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has been looking to tempt large technology companies into broadcasting deals to increase profits. Netflix and YouTube are among those the Premier League are believed to have targeted.
The move from Facebook is their most recent into streaming live football, having previously streamed La Liga and MLS games.
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It's understood that from 2019 the social media site will stream each of the Premier League's 380 games per season to those particular South East Asian countries.
Facebook made their intentions well known earlier this year when they hired Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton to lead their interest in live streaming sports worldwide.
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It's second time lucky for the social media giant's foray into live streaming sport. They missed out on streaming cricket's Indian Premier League despite an offer believed to be around £450m last year.
