Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Qatar has embraced sport as one of four pillars in its social and economic development strategy, and as a diplomatic tool. A second pillar is media, and while internationally Qatar is best known for Al Jazeera, the Qatar Investment Authority also supports BeIN, which in a short time – about 5 years – has come to be a major player in sport media not only in the MENA region, but also in Western Europe and North America, where it holds significant rights in major sport leagues. Locally, Qatar supports AlKass Sports Network, and all the major newspapers in the country feature sports prominently in their daily news coverage. ALL of these media receive most of their revenue from the state, not from advertising or subscribers. Who are Qatar’s sports journalists and content creators? Where were they trained and how do they see their jobs and where were they trained? Virtually nothing is known about the people who work in Qatar’s sports media, despite Qatar’s well-known desire to play a major role in international sports competition and governance. This paper will be the first examination of Qatar’s sports media, focusing on its personnel.