Al Jazeera Sports

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Al Jazeera Sports (Arabic: الجزيرة الرياضية‎) is a popular Arabic-language sports channel launched in November 2003 by the well-known Al Jazeera network. It has quickly grown and become the most popular sports channel in the Middle East, and has covered a wide range of major sporting events, such as the UEFA European Football Championship and the Summer Olympics.

Al Jazeera Sports also owns the exclusive broadcasting rights in the Middle East for major football leagues, like the Spanish La Liga and the Italian Serie A.

Al Jazeera Sports is based in Qatar, and is based in the same complex in Doha at TV Roundabout.

The current general manager of Al Jazeera Sports is Nasser Al Khelaifi

[edit] Channels

Al Jazeera Sport currently has 10 sister channels:Al Jazeera Sports 2, Al Jazeera Sports +1, Al Jazeera Sports +2, Al Jazeera Sports +3 and Al Jazeera Sports +4 ,Al Jazeera Sports +5 ,Al Jazeera Sports +6, Al Jazeera Sports +7, Al Jazeera Sports +8, & Al Jazeera Sports HD.

[edit] Events

Notable events which Al Jazeera Sports and its sister channels have broadcasting rights to include:

Football

UEFA European Championship until 2016

UEFA Champions League (starting season 2009/2010)
Italian Serie A
Spanish La Liga
French Ligue 1
Dutch Eredivise
Turkish Turkcell Süper Lig
Argentine League

Athletics

Tennis

Tournoi de Roland-Garros French Open

Motor SPORTS

BASKETBALL

NBA
NBA TV rights starting October 2009
NBA Playoffs
EuroLeague
FIBA World Championship

VOLLEY BALL

2010 World cup Qualification Matches
Pre Seasons Friendlies

[edit] UEFA Champions League

Al Jazeera Sports pulled off a major coup at the start of 2008 by winning the rights for the UEFA Champions League for three seasons starting from season 2009-2010. The rights were previously with ART Sport.

After seasons and seasons of exclusively airing the UEFA Champions League, ART now loses those rights to Aljazeera Sport Channel. Aljazeera won those rights and for the UEFA cup for at least the next three seasons from 2009 to 2012.

Ayman Jadah, Al Jazeera's General Manager, said: “this is a major development for us. Right now, we have about one million subscribers. We are looking at a figure of three million subscribers in the next two years,”

Al Jazeera beat off competition from ART, Orbit, Showtime and Abu Dhab to secure the rights. The bid figure was not revealed.

[edit] In Qatar

Al Jazeera Sports was the first sports channel to be launched from Qatar. It has broadcasted events held in Qatar like the 2006 Asian Games, the Losail leg of the MotoGP, Qatari League, The Emir Cup, Heir Apparent Cup and also FIFA World Cup qualifying matches of Qatar.