Last week’s stunning announcement, at least to some in United States soccer circles, that the next two and possibly six away World Cup qualifying matches would be shown only on Al Jazeera’s new network, beIN Sport, was not so bewildering in at least one quarter.

“Are American fans really upset? That would be a big surprise to me,” Jochen Lösch, the president of international business for Traffic Sports Marketing, said in a telephone interview from company headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil. “We offered the matches to everyone, but the amount of money we got offered was simply too low.”

The new beIN network, so far, has limited distribution through DirecTV and Dish Network. On Friday, Comcast announced it had picked up the channels, at a premium in its sports entertainment package, which means the game at Jamaica on Sept. 7 could be available in a total of 54 million homes. Traffic controlled the rights to the United States games and 28 other Concacaf qualifiers, except Mexico. For Cup qualifiers, nations control only the TV rights to games on their soil.

BeIN currently carries Spain’s La Liga, France’s Ligue 1, Italy’s Serie A and South American World Cup qualifiers (except in Argentina), and has “messed up the market for everyone,” according to a television industry insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to not jeopardize future negotiations. The person said beIN paid double the $18 million fee GolTV had paid La Liga. “I think Traffic was looking for $500,000 a game,” the person said.

Lösch would not confirm the sale price but did say that Traffic negotiated with Soccer United Marketing, the marketing arm of Major League Soccer that operates as the agent for U.S. Soccer — which would then fashion a deal with ESPN, NBC Sports Network or Fox Soccer. Soccer United Marketing dropped out of negotiations because of the price (in excess of $1 million according to an official with M.L.S. with knowledge of the talks, though Lösch disputed that figure).

“We negotiated with M.L.S. and SUM on behalf of ESPN, maybe the problem lies there,” Lösch said. “I don’t know if they understand the value of U.S. soccer.” He added: “I’m a little surprised to hear people moaning about beIN. Everyone should be happy because they want to build a real football channel. No channel in the U.S. thinks they have to pay money for U.S. games. They seem to think there is not a big appeal. If now they are complaining, maybe they underestimated the value. I think everyone should be happy beIN is taking over. It’s good for U.S. football.”

The most recent United States World Cup qualifier, at Guatemala in June, was available for $30 only on pay-per-view. Lösch said that beIN was a better alternative, though nearly every cable system in the country offers pay-per-view events, if fans want to pay the freight.

“The North American audience should be happy that beIN entered the marketplace,” he said. “Finally, someone gives the performances of the national teams in the Concacaf region the value they deserve, especially the performances of Team USA.”