beIN MEDIA GROUP’s (‘beIN’) flagship channel beIN SPORTS, the leading sports broadcaster in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), was awarded ‘Best Sports Strategy of the Year’ at the 13^th edition of the BroadcastPro ME Summit & Awards, which celebrates excellence in the MENA entertainment, broadcast and satellite industries.

In the ‘Best Sports Strategy of the Year’ category, beIN demonstrated its linear and digital nous with its extensive coverage of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022^TM – which started as early as 500 days before the tournament kick off, with dedicated broadcast programmes, World Cup™ bulletins and highlight reels from previous games. Throughout the tournament, beIN produced 18+ hours of daily live coverage across each of its nine channels from more than 20 state-of-the-art studios featuring a broadcast team of more than 120 leading international and regional experts.

On its linear channels, beIN SPORTS achieved record-breaking numbers, with a staggering 242.8m viewers across the region tuning in for the FIFA World Cup^TM final between Argentina and France – equating to 68 per cent of MENA’s total adult population, and an overall cumulative viewership of more than 5.4bn of the month-long tournament.

Meanwhile, beIN’s digital presence was also hugely impressive as online videos accounted to 1.1bn views, totaling 33m hours of watch time, while the social media team underlined its commitment to go bigger and better than ever before, posting 3,400 times more than its previous World Cup™ coverage.

Jassim Abdulrahman Al-Muftah, Director of Corporate Communications for beIN MENA said: “With the World Cup™ being hosted in an Arab country for the first time, we were committed to go above and beyond to provide exceptional coverage and the best viewing experience possible for our broadcast and digital viewers. This latest accolade underlines our continued drive for excellence in every aspect of the business and we look forward to delivering more success in the future.”

The latest beIN accolade follows a double triumph for the company at the MENA Digital Awards last month, where they clinched top honours in two categories: ‘Best Use of Cross Platform Digital Content’ and ‘Best Use of Social Media’, as well as a Gold for the ‘Best Use of Digital and Social in Sports’ at the Sports Industry Awards 2023.