Telefonica reclaims La Liga rights for €1.2 billion 


News 

The announcement comes after Telefonica was forced to reapply for the tender following competition authority intervention 

Telefonica has this week announced that it has retained the exclusive rights to air games from La Liga (the top tier of Spanish men’s football) via its Movistar plus streaming service, until the end of the 2026-27 season. 

The Spanish telco can now broadcast five out of the ten live football matches per week, and will pay €1.29 billion to do so. 

In 2021, La Liga had initially agreed broadcast contracts with streaming platform DAZN and Telefonica until the end of the 2026-27 season, but were mandated to re-tender the rights after intervention from the (National Commission on Markets and Competition CNMC), Spain’s competition regulator.  

The CNMC argued that Telefonica should have not been allowed to buy the broadcasting rights for a period exceeding three years, under the terms of its acquisition of pay TV operator Digital+ in 2015. 

This term limit has now been scrapped, which has resulted in Telefonica being able enter and win a new tender process. Telefonica bid €250 million for the 2024/25 season and €520 million for each of the 2025/26 and 2026/2027 seasons. 

This newly acquired tender does not affect the rights held by DAZN, which also runs until the end of the 2026-27 season. 

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