DAZN, the other great player in football broadcasts in Spain together with Movistar, has sold its hospitality business to LaLigawhich includes both Spanish football and the Premier League, Formula 1 or Moto GP; according to 2Playbook accountplatform specialized in sports industry business, online from the statement issued yesterday by LaLiga.
This operation has materialized after receiving no offer of Mediapro nor of the telecoms usually interested in football (Orange and Movistar itself) to broadcast these sports exclusively in bars and restaurants. Neither did Vodafone or any other. The “HORECA lot” (hotels, restaurants and catering), somewhat weakened after the pandemic, will have to be managed internally and that from LaLiga they point out that they trust that it will allow it to reach “more public establishments, with a more competitive offer”.
150 million gross and the context of football on TV for the coming years
Now it will be LaLiga who will exploit this business, which could report 150 million euros grossleaving about 120 million to distribute among the clubs, an expected figure that improves the returns obtained in the previous three seasons (2019/2020 to 2021/2022), under an exclusivity regime.
LaLiga will now be the one to directly offer the sports package to hotel establishments, without operators involved
For several years the rules of the game have changed for the hospitality industry, who were charged higher prices than those of domestic users, since until then they paid the same fee as these. Since then they pay higher fees in exchange for access to the channel LaLigaTV Barthe only one authorized for public premises, although in the last year they began to discriminate prices to collect fees based on locations and capacity.
The terms of the agreement have not been made public, although the main motivation for LaLiga to face this business alone may be in how the football rights have been distributed for the following seasons, with Movistar as the only option to watch all the matches, and DAZN for half of them.
If the fan of a specific team does not want to have to jump through the hoops of Telefónica and the various contracts that are required to be able to access football, which leave the price above one hundred euros per month, DAZN remains as an alternative more affordable, but you won’t be able to watch all your team’s games on it. That’s where the option of going to your trusted bar to see them comes in. And there is the point of interest of LaLiga to reinforce this option.
An option that is also being considered to be offered through the LaLiga OTT, developed and in operation in Indonesia and Thailand, and that could be used for the direct offer to bars, together with the option of a decoder. In this way, friction during contracting is also reduced, which could also be done with any operator instead of the most common, although this is an idea to be confirmed. And that could be a preview for a few years from now if it is finally encouraged to offer this OTT also to individuals, without operators involved, although that is another story.
