12 Days of Christmas Date published by Sportcal: 13 November 2015

Domestic media rights tender launched by LaLiga, opening new free-to-air options By Catherine Davies

The Spanish Liga has released the terms of its media rights auction for the three seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19, inviting interested parties to submit bids by 2 December.

The Liga’s final tender document shows several changes from the draft tender that was presented to the CNMC, the national competition authority, last week.

Although the Liga expressed its concern that the CNMC had published the draft document and reiterated that the commission’s recommendations were not binding, it did, in the end, adopt some of the suggested changes.

Most notably, the Liga has carved out one match per round from the Copa del Rey, the national cup tournament, for free-to-air broadcast.

The Copa matches will be selected on a second-choice basis, with the first-choice reserved for pay- TV, up to the semi-finals, when the free-to-air rights holder will gain first choice. In both cases, the final and the two-legged Supercopa matches are excluded, as they are sold separately by the RFEF, the national association.

Another major concession is the opening-up of the top package Package 5, which contains the ‘’partidazo” or top match of the week, to free-to-air broadcasters. In the past, the first-pick match was aired on Canal Plus, the premium pay-TV channel, which is now owned by Telefónica, the telecoms giant, and carried on its Movistar Plus pay-TV platform.

The Liga has also carved out, for the first time, the six matches play-off matches played by the second-division clubs for promotion to the top tier at the end of each session, and bundled them in to Package 5, together with the first-pick second division match.

The final tender, which can be found here (in Spanish), also reduces the number of second-division matches reserved exclusively for free-to-air broadcast to six, from the 10 included in the package last week.

The three remaining pay-TV packages are unchanged: bidders are invited to submit offers for first or second-division Liga and all Copa matches excluding those contained in Packages 1 or 2, or for the corresponding Liga TV channel, which will be produced by the Liga itself. The final pay channel comprises the commercial service for bars and pubs.

12 Days of Christmas Date published by Sportcal: 13 November 2015

In a nod to the increasing competitiveness of the Liga, with ‘second-tier’ clubs challenging the dominance of league giants Real and , the tender also stipulates that the weekly free-to-air match excludes any matches played by Valencia or Atlético de Madrid, in addition to those of the two bigger clubs, as well as those of any other club playing in either the Uefa Champions League or Europa League each season.

In recent years, the free-to-air match excludes only Real Madrid and Barcelona matches as well as any other club playing in European competition.

Contrary to the recommendations of the CNMC, the Liga confirmed that it would apply reserve prices to each package, and would proceed to a second round if it did not achieve its target, giving a maximum of 48 hours for the participating bidders to submit new offers.

The Liga also laid out the terms for the television production of each match, which will be carried out by the Liga itself or by its designed production partner, in line with the Royal Decree.

12 Days of Christmas Date published by Sportcal: 13 November 2015

It outlined the various levels of production, which require differing levels of camera coverage and technology. The top level, carrying the highest production values, covers the two annual ‘clásicos’, playing between Real Madrid and Barcelona, which last season were produced by Mediapro, the league’s agency and production partner, to 4K super high definition standard.

The next level is the Premium Production level, comprising the top match of the week, which includes a match of either Real Madrid or Barcelona, with four other levels corresponding to first, second and Copa matches, with highlights and other costs making up the eight categories. The successful bidders in each case will bear the costs of production as part of their contract.

High expectations

The Liga is hoping to exceed the €600 million ($644.9 million) it is earning this season from the sale of its pay-TV rights by drumming up competition between the various pay-TV operators.

Telefónica is understood to be keen to keep hold of the pay-TV rights it holds to nine of the 10 weekly matches, including all the matches of Real Madrid and Barcelona and the clubs in European competition, which this season comprise the three other clubs playing in the Champions League (Atlético, Sevilla and Valencia) and Europa League participants Villareal and Athletic Bilbao.

The telecoms company, which broadcasts the matches on its Movistar Plus pay-TV service, now has over 4 million subscribers, making it by far the largest pay-TV operator in .

A company executive told Sportcal last month that it had signed up the highest-ever total of new subscribers to Movistar Plus in one day in September, even though it is prevented by law from showing Liga matches exclusively.

Rival pay-TV operators Vodafone and Orange, meanwhile, are understood to have dramatically increased their own subscriber bases after sealing sub-licensing deals with Telefónica for the Liga pay-TV rights, bundling the Liga rights in with attractively-priced triple and quadruple-play options.

A fourth player, the new BeIN Sports Spain service, is also expected to be a fierce bidder for the Liga rights in the new auction. BeIN Sports was launched in June by BeIN Media Group and is operated by Mediapro, and it carries exclusive live coverage of the Uefa Champions League and Europa League as well as a range of other top leagues from Europe and the Americas.

Mediapro has sub-licensed the BeIN Sports channel to both Vodafone and Orange but has so far failed to come to an agreement with Telefónica, which rejected the agency’s asking price of some €140 million per season.

2015-16 season

In the present season, the Liga sold the rights centrally in a one-year deal, bringing forward the proposed start of the new system by 12 months. The decision to seal a one-year deal was reached after the Liga was unable to resolve a conflict between Telefónica, the telecoms giant, and Mediapro, the sports rights agency, over club rights ownership.

Telefónica held the media rights to four clubs, including Liga giant Barcelona, for the 2015-16 season, while Mediapro held the rights to the remaining clubs, including Real Madrid. Telefónica refused to follow Mediapro’s example in pooling its club rights into the collective pot, in a strategic moved designed to ensure that it secured a large tranche of the pay-TV rights to the league.

12 Days of Christmas Date published by Sportcal: 13 November 2015

In the end, the Liga agreed a one-year deal worth €600 million ($652.2 million) with Telefónica for the pay-TV rights to the league, selling on highlights to public-service broadcaster TVE. Under the terms governing the approval of its recent take-over of Canal Plus, Telefónica was obliged to sub- license its rights to rival pay-TV operators.