Football: Streamer Zack Nani acquires broadcast rights to the Saudi Arabian league, which Canal+ no longer owns

Up to three matches will be streamed for free each week on Twitch and YouTube starting August 19. The encrypted channel, which has held the rights since 2023, announced it would not renew its contract this summer.

An individual acquiring the rights to a league is rare enough to be worth noting. Streamer Zack Nani, a content creator primarily present on the Twitch platform, announced Friday, August 8, that he had obtained the broadcasting rights to the Saudi Pro League , the Saudi Arabian football championship. "This project reflects a strong desire to offer an alternative to traditional broadcasting models," he explained, quoted in a press release. Up to three matches will be broadcast for free each week on his Twitch and YouTube channels, starting August 19.

The Saudi Pro League, whose rights had been purchased by Canal+ starting in 2023, no longer had a broadcaster in France, with the encrypted channel's sports director, Thomas Sénécal, announcing in July that he had not renewed the contract. " These are rights that I am buying personally and not through an investor or another company," Zack Nani told L'Equipe , announcing that he plans to regularly host the broadcast with a football specialist as well as internet personalities.

With over 800,000 subscribers on YouTube and 600,000 on Twitch, Zack Nani broadcasts entertainment videos, interviews on his show "Zack en roue libre" (Zack in Freewheeling), and football-related content. In 2023, he notably won a one-on-one with Karim Benzema, the recent Ballon d'Or winner, a video that has since racked up 2.6 million views on YouTube.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia, which will host the 2034 World Cup , has spent huge sums attracting stars to the Saudi Pro League. In addition to Karim Benzema, who is about to begin his third season with Al-Ittihad, his former Real Madrid teammate, Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, has renewed his contract with Al-Nassr. Other French players have joined the Saudi signing list, such as Moussa Dembélé, Moussa Diaby, and N'Golo Kanté, and this summer, Théo Hernandez.