Sports Rights: Laliga Signs FTA Deal With ITV; Onefootball Bags Serie A For UK And Ireland
By Jonathan Easton
Regular season live club football has returned to ITV for the first time since 2015, with the broadcaster agreeing a rights deal to Spanish top-flight league LaLiga.
The pubcaster has announced a sublicencing deal with Premier Sports to broadcast 10 matches for the next three seasons. ITV said that either FC Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid will appear in ITV games.
The first match of the season to be shown was Barcelona’s 0-0 draw at home to Rayo Vallecano, which was broadcast on ITV4 and streamed on the ITV Hub on August 21.
Premier Sports, which last month was acquired by Viaplay, operates the LaLigaTV pay-tv channel which broadcasts each of the 10 fixtures staged every LaLiga match day. The sportscaster will hope that the increased exposure to Spanish football will drive subscriptions to the £7.99(US$9.63) per month channel, while the main Premier Sports channel shows more than 300 matches per season for £9.99 per month.
Niall Sloane, ITV Director of Sport, said: “This deal ensures free to air coverage for all football fans of one of the most entertaining leagues in the world. The deal with Premier Sports will give fans the chance to see some of the most iconic clubs and world-class players in action, live on ITV.”
Live club football returned to ITV in 2021 when it regained the rights to the English season-opening FA Community Shield. It previously was a mainstay of UK football broadcasting as co-rights holder of the UEFA Champions League prior to BT Sport’s purchase of the rights in 2015.
This is the latest rights deal for LaLiga, which earlier this month became the first European league to launch a DTC streaming service in China.
