LATAM broadcasters cast doubt on Sportflix streaming platform’s legality

Leading Latin American broadcasters have cast doubts on the legality of the sports-focused, over-the-top (OTT) platform Sportflix after it failed to reveal its broadcasting rights Policy.

ESPN, Turner and Fox, which own most of the sports TV rights across LATAM, have publicly stated that they haven’t reached any kind of agreement with the platform, thus making it impossible for Sportflix to air the competitions via streaming.

“We have national football teams’ games. We have the UEFA Champions League, the Libertadores, the Sudamericana, and locally we have Mexico’s Liga MX and the competitions of Argentina, Brazil and the US, plus European leagues such as La Liga, the Bundesliga and the Premier League,” stated Matias Said, VP, Sportflix, when the platform was presented as a worldwide streaming service focused on sports.

In Argentina, where football rights are to be managed by pay-TV programmers for the first time in eight years, both Turner and Fox have now stated that no rights agreement has been reached with Sportflix. As a result, the platform won’t be able to legally stream the competition.

ESPN, which owns the rights of most of football competitions, some of them exclusive for the region, has issued a public statement casting doubt on Sportflix's legality.

“ESPN has not reached any agreement with Sportflix. ESPN works together with content rights owners and distributors and will take the necessary measures to protect its products against piracy and misuse,” said the company.

Though its rights policy remains unclear, the Mexico-based platform has prepared a launch that copies the strategy of many legal platforms. Sportflix is to be released along with an Android and iOS app and three different content packages.