MUMBAI: Broadcasters need to be careful of their turf as digital players are swooping in to pick sporting rights. Facebook has acquired the English Premier League rights for the Southeast Asia territory by paying £200 million.

Facebook made its intentions clear to move into sports by bidding around Rs 3000 crore for the digital rights of Indian Premier League in September last year and hiring Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton earlier this year.

According to Thedrum.com, Facebook has powered ahead of BeIN Sports and Fox Sports Asia to secure the exclusive rights to broadcast live Premier League matches in Southeast Asia from 2019. The coverage of English soccer’s top flight in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is for a three-year period covering 2019 to 2022.

The rights package includes all 380 Premier League matches each season in what is Facebook’s biggest move into the live sports market to date.

Along with Amazon, Facebook was also widely tipped to make a bid for the Premier League’s domestic rights this year, with the league specifically structuring two packages to make it more attractive to the tech giants. As Facebook stayed away, it was ultimately Amazon who secured the package of 20 live matches each season for three years from 2019.