Facebook to air Spain's La Liga matches for free in India, seven countries

The social media platform, which is pushing its video services and aims to be a challenger in the OTT space, has the rights to stream the Spanish football league for free for the next three years

Spanish football league La Liga has awarded Facebook the streaming rights for all La Liga Santander matches in the Indian subcontinent.

The first-of-a-kind agreement spans across three seasons, commences with the 2018-19 tournament kicking off on August 17.

All 380 first division matches of Spain’s top-flight football league will be available for free to football lovers on Facebook in eight countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. With Sony Pictures Network India’s deal with La Liga ended last year, the league would be available only on Facebook this year onwards.In other words, the Spanish league will not be available on TV, which is a first for any major international sporting event in India.

With this, Facebook realises its ambitions to enter sports broadcasting in the Indian subcontinent. Last year, it had bid for the global streaming rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL). In fact, it was the highest individual bidder for the digital rights with a bid of Rs 39 billion (2018-22 tenure). However, with Star India winning the composite bid for TV and digital rights worldwide, Facebook could not enter sports broadcasting through IPL.

The Facebook community in the eight countries will be able to watch LaLiga Santander coverage on a live and on-demand basis via multiple devices. Every match will be available on the official La Liga Facebook Page as well as on individual club pages. For major matches, viewers in the region will also have access to interactive studio coverage hosted by Joe Morrison.

In addition to the live matches, shoulder programming, including a full range of weekly preview shows and highlights, will be aired.

La Liga President Javier Tebas said,“We are thrilled to team up with Facebook to bring the millions of La Liga fans in the Indian subcontinent even closer to action. La Liga sets the standard for football in the world and we are delighted that more people than ever before will have the opportunity to watch our matches live and for free through Facebook.”

Peter Hutton, Facebook head of global live sports programming, said, “As home to the two most-followed sports clubs on Facebook and some of the world’s most iconic footballers, La Liga has a huge global presence on our platform. Its popularity is notably visible in the Indian subcontinent, so we’re delighted to be able to serve the community of fans there with free, live La Liga matches for the next three seasons. We see this as a great opportunity to not only bring people together around world-class football, but also help La Liga reach new audiences and grow its visibility in a key development market.”