beIN to deliver Rugby World Cup to MENA viewers Details Rebecca Hawkes | 10 September 2019 Pay-TV operator beIN Media has secured the Middle East and North Africa media rights for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on 20 September in Tokyo. The last two editions of rugby union’s flagship event have been broadcast in MENA by beIN’s Dubai-based pay-TV rival OSN. However, this year OSN announced it was calling time on its sports content to focus on entertainment. Instead, Qatar’s beIN Sports will now televise and stream live matches from Japan exclusively to rugby fans in Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. This latest rights deal with World Rugby is an extension of that already announced by beIN for parts of Asia. The existing deal will see beIN Asia Pacific broadcast the event in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia. The rights to air the Rugby World Cup in sub-Saharan Africa are held by Naspers’ pay-TV network SuperSport, while pay-TV platform Fox Sports and free-to-air Network Ten are the official broadcasters for the Rugby World Cup in Australia. The six week tournament, which will be captured by up to 34 cameras, will also be broadcast in 8K to home audiences by Japanese broadcaster NHK. Viewers are also being promised augmented reality (AR) graphics for team line-ups, player comparisons, statistics and tables. World Rugby said that, worldwide, the event “will reach the broadest rugby audience in history with the action broadcast to more than 800 million households in 217 territories, surpassing the 683 million homes record in 2015”.