Facebook – La Liga Partnership to end: Facebook will not Live Stream La Liga in India from the next season. La Liga which had released its media-rights tender in January for the Indian Sub-Continent market will not have incumbent partner Facebook as one of the suitor for the rights according to the new announcement by Facebook. According to Rob Shaw, the Facebook Director of Sports League and media partnerships, company will neither renew La Liga rights in India nor the UEFA Champions League Rights in Latin America.
Both contracts, which were signed in 2018, are due to expire this year, and Shaw confirmed in an op-ed on the Sportico website that the social media giant did not enter a bid to extend the agreements.
‘We still have excellent partnerships with these leagues, but the reality is that traditional media rights deals like these aren’t compatible with our current video business model, We also don’t think they’ll create the most sustainable value for the industry moving forward.’, wrote Shaw.
La Liga – Facebook partnership in India to end
In 2018, Facebook had acquired the football league’s broadcast rights of the Indian subcontinent for three years for an undisclosed sum. In 2020, Laliga had witnessed a 72 per cent increase in viewership in India after the league restarted in June. The Indian subcontinent accounts for 10 per cent of the social media followers of the league and nearly 5 per cent of which comes from India.
At the time, the pair of broadcast partnerships represented two of Facebook’s first major forays into live streaming and the company was widely being tipped to become a significant player in the sports rights landscape.
However, Shaw said that Facebook now believes the future of free-to-air distribution will ‘fuel a promising new business model for leagues and networks’, which will rely more on ‘establishing a direct relationship with consumers’ rather than on rights fees.
‘Admittedly, it isn’t mature enough yet to replace what the NFL, Uefa and La Liga will earn from their next television deals. But it can complement the current media rights model,’ Shaw wrote. ‘And it’s especially relevant for the countless rights holders that don’t generate significant TV rights fees.’
Facebook’s decision not to renew with Uefa and La Liga is not surprising given previous reports suggesting that the company would be pulling back on the purchase of live sports rights.
Speaking in 2019, Peter Hutton, Facebook’s director of global sports partnerships, suggested that the company was not planning to make significant bids for premium sports coverage anytime soon.
“Our position changes as the platform changes, but I am certainly not expecting any huge investments in sports rights in the near future,” he had said. “I know that people always talk about the big [technology] giants coming and that life is changing. Who knows? Maybe one day, but certainly not today.”
La Liga Tender for the Indian Sub-Continent market
LaLiga had invited bids for the broadcasting rights in the Indian Subcontinent in January. The deadline to submit bids for February 8th. The Spanish league since then hasn’t come up with announcement of the new media rights partner for the Indian Sub-Continent.