Fite, the combat sports-focused streaming platform, has acquired exclusive rights to soccer’s top-tier Liga Portugal across several markets through the 2025-26 season, ending a blackout to the 2023-24 campaign.
The agreement covers the UK and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, with coverage starting with this weekend’s round 12 fixtures, including leaders Benfica’s away game at Moreirense.
Fite takes over from financially struggling Viaplay, which held rights to the league in the UK last season. The new deal has been brokered by international sports and marketing agency Sportfive.
Sportfive is assisting with the sale of the league’s international rights for the 2023-24 to 2025-26 cycle under a deal with rights holder Sport TV, the Portuguese pay-TV broadcaster.
The new deal comes after Sport TV launched an international broadcast tender for the top league covering the three-year cycle in early February.
Since then, deals have been secured with DAZN (Italy), BeIN Sports (France), ESPN (Brazil), and United Media (the Balkans). While the main rights package to the league has not been secured in Spain, one game per week is aired in that country by RTP Internacional, an international channel of the Portuguese public-service broadcaster.
The deal adds to Fite’s growing portfolio outside combat sport as it looks to expand its remit, including an exclusive two-year rights deal with the Asian Football Confederation’s top-tier Champions League covering the UK and Ireland, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.
The streaming platform's first foray outside combat sport came while securing games for last year's Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) across the US and all of North, Central, and South America, as well as Germany, Italy, Spain, most of Europe, and Africa.
Under a deal agreed with US-based sports media and marketing agency Integrated Sports Media, Fite aired the men's, women's, and wheelchair RLWC events across its various markets from October 15 and November 19, 2022.
Adam Bigwood, vice president of subscriptions at Fite, has now said: “This exclusive deal, with one of Europe’s finest leagues, highlights our dedication to providing diverse and premium sports content to our global audience.
“As we continue to expand our soccer offerings, Fite remains at the forefront of delivering superior sports and entertainment through our advanced technology platform.”
The network, owned by sports, fashion, and entertainment technology company TrillerNet, has typically only shown boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts events on its platform.
Fite streams over 1,000 events per year and claims to have over 6 million subscribers globally.
