LONDON—Jasmine International Public Co. Ltd (JAS TV) has selected anti-piracy and video cybersecurity provider Friend MTS to safeguard its premium live sports content across Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

The collaboration brings together Friend MTS’s advanced anti-piracy solutions, including forensic watermarking and global monitoring services, to protect English Premier League (EPL) soccer matches.

JAS TV, operator of the MONOMAX streaming service, acquired EPL rights through 2031 for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. At the start of the 2025-26 EPL season, JAS TV went live with Friend MTS to deliver an end-to-end anti-piracy strategy. The focus is to identify and take down restreaming users who feed Thai pirate sites, Fiend MTS said.

JAS TV chose Friend MTS for its technology solutions, global services and track record protecting premium live sports, including the EPL. The deployment combines Friend MTS’s 24/7 global monitoring with subscriber watermarking and distribution watermarking.

Subscriber watermarking embeds a unique identifier in each individual stream, enabling rapid identification and disconnection of pirate accounts. Distribution watermarking adds an invisible fingerprint at the channel or platform level to trace leaks anywhere in the video supply chain. Together, these layers enable real-time detection of illicit redistribution and swift removal of illegal feeds during live matches.

“Securing the Premier League rights was a major milestone for us and protecting that investment is critical to our strategy,” JAS TV President Sang Do Lee said. “With FMTS’s anti-piracy solutions, we can ensure fans enjoy the Premier League through official platforms like our MONOMAX streaming service, while safeguarding the value of our rights across Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. We take piracy very seriously and see the partnership with FMTS as a vital step to sustaining the future of premium sports content in our region.”

More information is available on the Friend MTS website.

NEW YORK—CBS Sports and the English Football League (EFL) have announced an exclusive, multi-year, multi-platform rights agreement that will see CBS Sports offer the widest distribution of EFL matches ever in the United States. 

As part of the deal, CBS Sports will air at least 250 EFL matches each season across the Championship, League One, League Two, Carabao Cup and Bristol Street Motors Trophy beginning in August and continuing through the end of the 2027/28 season. Matches will air on Paramount+ with select matches airing on CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network.

With 1,891 scheduled matches (fixtures) each season, the EFL is home to some of the most respected, popular and successful football competitions in the world. At the end of the 2023/24 season, the EFL ranked as the highest-attended League body in Europe with 21.5 million fans welcomed through the turnstiles for a Championship, League One or League Two fixture.

“The exciting action and prestige of the EFL, as the oldest league in the world, adds tremendous value to CBS Sports’ premium soccer portfolio,” said Dan Weinberg, executive vice president, programming, CBS Sports. “With the EFL’s compelling storylines and growing popularity coupled with our first-class coverage, we look forward to further elevating this league in the U.S. CBS Sports continues to be the premier destination for European football fans in this country with Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo Network as must-haves with their wide array of soccer properties and robust year-round match coverage.”

“Appetite for football in the North American markets has been growing year on year, and this partnership with CBS Sports and their leadership in covering the sport marks a significant milestone,” said Trevor Birch, CEO at the EFL. “The EFL is already broadcast to a global audience of 400 million across 182 territories, beaming into more than 250 million homes outside of the UK. We believe that American fans will embrace the excitement, tradition, and competitiveness that is embodied by our EFL competitions. This is an exciting time for the League and our Clubs, and we look forward to sharing our matches with viewers across the United States.”

PHILADELPHIA—Comcast NBCUniversal has announced that the Premier League has joined the partner consortium of the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator. 

As part of the partner consortium, the Premier League, which is the organizing body of the English Premier League football competition, will work with other members of the group as strategic advisors to the startups selected for the annual program, which is currently midway through its third cohort. 

In addition to advising the startups, the Premier League will have the opportunity to be involved in the selection of startups for SportsTech’s fourth cohort, which is currently open to applicants, as well as future classes.

“Through our first three cohorts, we noticed that more than one-third of startup teams applying are international and often looking to break into the U.S. market to further accelerate their business success,” said Jenna Kurath, vice president of startup partnerships, head of Comcast NBCU SportsTech. “The Premier League, with its expansive footprint, global fanbase, and incredible leadership will be a wonderful asset to our startups and their experience in the program. We’re excited to work alongside the Premier League team and startup founders to test and experiment with emerging technologies that will bring fans closer to the sports moments that matter.”

“We are delighted to be adding to our longstanding relationship with Comcast and NBC by joining the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator,” added Paul Molnar, chief media officer at the Premier League. “We look forward to working with the Comcast NBCU team, Boomtown, and the other sports partners to help discover new and emerging technologies which can play a meaningful role in the ever-changing sports industry, while supporting the startup founders in their evolution and development.”

The decision to join the consortium builds on existing ties between Comcast NBCU and the league. 

Peacock and NBC Sports will serve as the exclusive U.S. media home of the Premier League Summer Series — the first ever Premier League-hosted pre-season tournament in the United States — featuring nine live matches across nine days beginning Sat., July 22.

All match and studio coverage of the Premier League Summer Series will stream live on Peacock in the U.S. 

Will McIntosh, president, Fandango & NBC Sports Next noted that in “assessing the next sports partner to bring on board, the Premier League was a standout choice that will provide value to the startups in the accelerator looking to find product market fit in the world of sports. With our broadcasting rights on Sky, Peacock, and NBC Sports, this partnership also creates a shared alignment for building new, more immersive fan experiences.”

Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech was set up to spur innovation in sports technologies. 

As part of that effort it has built a distinct group of experts who advise the accelerator's participants.

These include business leaders from NBC Sports, Sky Sports, GOLF, NBC Sports Next, and Comcast Spectacor, alongside NASCAR, WWE, PGA TOUR and three U.S. Olympic sports organizations: U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Swimming, and USA Cycling. 

The Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech focuses on providing opportunities for rising sports technology startups in the fields of media & entertainment; fan/player engagement; athlete/player performance; team & coach success; venue & event innovation; fantasy sports & betting; esports; and the business of sports.

Startups participating in Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech also benefit from an ongoing relationship with the program and its partners. Since the first class in 2021, SportsTech startup alumni have participated in 103 pilots, partnerships, and commercial deals with consortium partners.

The startups selected for the fourth Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech class will be announced in February 2024. Organizations interested in joining as part of the advisory group within SportsTech can visit https://www.comcastsportstech.com/partners. 

MELVILLE, N.Y.—ChyronHego will continue on as part of English Premier League’s (EPL) production team for the next three seasons per a recent announcement. The EPL has extended its contract to use ChyronHego’s TRACAB image-based tracking system for real-time ball- and player-tracking data for all 20 of its clubs.

The EPL began using the TRACAB system in 2013, but with this new deal a hardware upgrade will be provided to the systems in all 20 stadiums. The TRACAB system uses image-processing technology to determine the position of all moving objects on the field of play at 25 times per second. The results provide a live data feed for all the X, Y and Z coordinates for each identified object. The data can then be streamed in an open format to a multitude of visualization platforms, like broadcast graphics systems and online or mobile platforms, as well as prepare performance statistics for sports analysis.

The TRACAB system will be used for all EPL matches for the 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons.