- Tebas calls Disney+ UK deal for a “very good experiment”
- LaLiga boss doubts YouTube market can “penetrate Europe successfully”
- Uefa preparing to sell a first-pick global package for next Champions League cycle
LaLiga president Javier Tebas believes a pan-European soccer broadcast rights deal for a single competition would be “very difficult” amid ongoing attempts to consolidate the market.
Traditionally, European sports properties have taken a market-by-market approach to media rights sales but streaming services are increasingly demanding global rights. Indeed, Amazon Prime Video and DAZN broadcast the Uefa Champions League in several markets, while Disney+ has a pan-European deal for the Uefa Women’s Champions League (UWCL).
Now Uefa is preparing to let broadcasters bid for the rights to the Champions League in multiple countries and will create a ‘first pick’ global package to tempt the likes of Netflix, hoping this will increase the value of its deals.
However, speaking at the Sportel sports business conference in Monaco, Tebas suggested that domestic leagues were immune from this trend, citing a lack of interest in domestic leagues beyond their home country.
“The European market is completely fragmented, we have 300 million inhabitants in all of Europe,” Tebas said. “In Spain, people look for Spanish football games, we’re not looking at Italian or UK football games, so it is very difficult.
“We are far more fragmented, and the per capita income is higher so people can actually pay [for pay-TV subscriptions]. Maybe a premium offering can go on to conquer new digital worlds instead of the traditional world, by attracting subscribers, users and data. But we would not manage to get by [financially].”
LaLiga is adopting a more experimental approach to overseas markets. In the UK it has awarded an exclusive primetime game each Saturday to Disney+, complementing its more comprehensive deal with Premier Sports, while it has also struck a clips and highlights deal with Sky Sports. In addition, it has a global digital content deal with DAZN.
“We see interest in the market with all these streaming companies in the world, like Disney, Amazon, Netflix and others,” Tebas said. “So we have to think about sports content and how it will be distributed, so I think this is a very good experiment with the UK.
“We will have to understand what the subscribers think about it. In terms of what conclusions we can draw, we can fragment the market. Exclusivity [to a single broadcaster] is not really possible and is not really necessary in certain markets in order to be able to sell your rights.
“I think we can share one or two matches with broadcasters, once we look closely at the market.”
