International sports broadcaster Eleven Sports has expanded its reach in Belgium by launching a third channel, while it has acquired rights in the United States to the World Snooker Championship.
Eleven Sports 3, which is available in Flemish and French via www.elevensports.be and the Eleven Sports app, will broadcast additional club football action including Spain’s LaLiga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1, as well as other sports properties that are popular in Belgium including the Euro Hockey League, handball’s Champions League, Premier League Darts and the World Cup of Darts and mixed martial arts content from Cage Warriors.
Eleven Sports said the new channel has been created to ease scheduling clashes. The new OTT channel, which will run alongside Eleven Sports 1 and Eleven Sports 2, can be acquired exclusively for €1 ($1) per week or €1.50 per day. Fans in Belgium can purchase all three Eleven Sports channels as a package for €9.99 per month or €99 per year.
In addition to being available online and via the app, Eleven Sports said negotiations are ongoing with distributors with a view to making Eleven Sports 3 available in their packages.
Meanwhile, Eleven Sports has acquired live and exclusive rights to the final of the 2017 World Snooker Championship in the US.
The announcement follows last week’s news that the Facebook Live service of social media platform Facebook will stream the championship through to the quarter-finals via World Snooker’s Facebook page in the US.
“The World Snooker Championship is a great partner for us with clear ambitions to grow and develop globally,” Danny Menken, group managing director of Eleven Sports, said. “We are committed to delivering new and exciting sports content that is not readily available and we are looking forward to working with World Snooker to grow its fan community in the US.”
The World Championship is snooker’s showpiece event that takes place annually in Sheffield, England. This year’s edition commenced on Saturday and runs through to May 1.