Al Jazeera not to bid for Premiership rights

[joe516]

Al Jazeera has decided not to bid for the Premier League television rights when the next auction starts in August for a three year period. Al Jazeera had been seriously considering such a move as part of its plans to build a global sports brand.
The form of the packages to be offered has not yet been decided, but the Premier League had been hoping that Al Jazeera, backed by Qatar's gas and oil wealth, would go head-to-head with Sky. It now looks as if only BSkyB and ESPN will be involved in the main packages

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/al-jazeera-not-bid-premiership-rights

[entropy]

im gutted about that, i really wanted someone to knock the murdocks off their perch. it would have been interesting.

[lincsat]

Be careful what you wish for, the rights would have been shared - so if you wanted to watch all the games, ?50 a Month to Sky for their share, ?10 to ESPN for theirs and another ?10-?20 a Month to Al Jazeera for their package

[cris808]

From what I have read Al Jazeera couldn't meet a lot of the requirements the Premier League have set.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the 3pm games for the European market though.