Chester Perry wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 11:50 pm
Missed this during my stepping away from the board this week - La Liga has signed the biggest ever overseas league deal in the US with ESPN - note the length, 8 years, exactly what Claire Enders has been talking about as necessary to bring in the larger numbers (hence the Premier League role over deal domestically) - You would imagine that this will have the Premier League hopeful for their own deal which should be sealed in the next few months. This deal for la Liga comes in the week after spanish courts came down on La Liga's side after Real Madrid tried to block the collective agreements (
https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/la- ... management) - from SportsProMedia
ESPN secures ‘US$1.4bn’ La Liga US rights deal until 2029
Eight-year agreement sees Spanish soccer league buyout BeIN Sports’ contract.
Posted: May 14 2021 By: Sam Carp
- ESPN+ to stream 380 top-flight games per season
- Deal is the most valuable US media rights contract for an overseas soccer league, reports Sportico
- La Liga’s US broadcast partnership with BeIN originally due to run until end of 2023/24 season
Disney-owned sports broadcaster ESPN has secured rights in the US to La Liga until the end of the 2028/29 season.
Financial terms of the eight-year deal were not made public, but Sportico reports that ESPN will pay the Spanish soccer body US$175 million a year, equal to some US$1.4 billion over the duration of the agreement. The sports business outlet added that it is now the most valuable US media rights contract for an overseas soccer league.
Starting from the 2021/22 season, the deal will bring live and on-demand coverage of 380 top-flight matches a year to ESPN+, the broadcaster’s subscription streaming service. ESPN+ will also show a selection of games from La Liga SmartBank, Spanish soccer’s second tier, including five promotion playoffs. All fixtures will be available in both English and Spanish.
Select matches will air across ESPN’s linear networks each season, while coverage and highlights will also be available on SportsCenter and other ESPN studio programmes, as well as on the broadcaster’s digital and social platforms.
The expansive deal also includes a variety of surround programming, including match previews, highlights and magazine shows.
“We are absolutely thrilled to bring La Liga to ESPN in the US,” said La Liga president Javier Tebas. “This is an historic eight-season agreement in US soccer broadcasting that speaks to the power of La Liga and its clubs in the largest media market in the world and will bring the world’s best soccer league to American screens in a more comprehensive and modern way than ever before.”
The deal further bolsters the lineup of soccer on ESPN+, which also includes Spain’s Copa Del Rey knockout tournament, Germany’s top-flight Bundesliga and Major League Soccer (MLS), among others.
Burke Magnus, executive vice president of programming and original content at ESPN, added: “As the sport of soccer continues its ascendance in the US market, we are incredibly excited to work with La Liga to establish a deeper connection to American fans through our company’s industry-leading streaming platforms, television networks, and digital and social media assets.”
In order to agree the deal with ESPN, La Liga had to buy back its US media rights from Qatar-based broadcaster BeIN Sports, which was due to be the league’s exclusive broadcast partner in the country until the end of the 2023/24 season.
BeIN said in a statement that the arrangement is ‘strategically and commercially beneficial’ to the two parties, who remain partners in markets such as France, Australia, and the Middle East and North Africa.
Commenting on the move, Richard Verow, chief sports officer at BeIN Media Group, said that the broadcaster still has “significant ambitions” for the US market, where it holds rights to properties such as French soccer’s Ligue 1, South America’s Copa Libertadores and the Africa Cup of Nations.
“Like broadcasters all over the world, we are constantly assessing our rights portfolio across all our markets to ensure financial discipline, commercial and strategic sense, and – crucially – long term growth,” Verow added. “This arrangement with La Liga in the US and Canada reflects that, sacrificing a short-term gain for long-term wins and sustainability in North America.
“Financial discipline has never been more important in the current context, where you have a ferociously competitive US market, coupled with constantly changing viewing habits, all complicated further by the pandemic and rampant piracy.”
North America is an important strategic market for La Liga, which in 2018 signed up to a 15-year joint venture with US sports and entertainment company Relevent Sports to grow its brand in the region. The league’s new deal with ESPN will put it alongside a number of other premium sports properties and also expose it to a broad US audience, with Disney reporting this week that ESPN+ now has 13.8 million subscribers.
Some really interesting background to that La Liga - ESPN US broadcast deal. it comes from the partnership with Relevent who run the international summer pre-season tournament ICC and who also have agreements with UEFA - from SportsBusiness.com
How LaLiga-Relevent Sports partnership in US led to record $1.4bn ESPN media rights deal
Bob Williams, US office
June 10, 2021
- Joint venture partnership has transformed league’s presence and commercial fortunes in region
- Two parties aligned following overwhelming success of El Clasico Miami in July 2017
- Following Mexico expansion, model could now be expanded into further international territories
LaLiga’s recently-secured, record-setting $1.4bn (€1.16bn) media rights deal with ESPN in the United States is the resounding high point thus far in the three-year history of LaLiga North America, the joint venture between LaLiga and Relevent Sports Group.
In August 2018, Relevent Sports – the US-based global soccer promoters best known for running the International Champions Cup tournaments – entered into a 15-year partnership with LaLiga, primarily designed to expand the brand awareness and commercial fortunes of the Spanish top-tier professional soccer organization and its clubs in the US and Canada.
At the time of the announcement, the joint venture’s controversial plans to stage official regular-season LaLiga matches on US soil – an initiative still yet to achieve fruition due to widespread global opposition – understandably grabbed most of the headlines.
One of the key parts of LaLiga North America’s five-pronged business plan, though, was to achieve far greater broadcast distribution for the league in the US, as well as significantly increased media rights revenues.
During the past three years, the organization’s executives and employees have worked tirelessly behind the scenes developing relationships with senior media executives at all the major US networks, creating English- and Spanish-language digital content and original programming, staging a multitude of events and securing sponsorship deals, among other initiatives, all designed to enhance LaLiga’s presence and stature in the crowded and competitive US sporting landscape.
Their hard work has paid off in spades. In May, ESPN and LaLiga announced a wide-ranging long-term media rights deal that will make streaming service ESPN+ the principal English- and Spanish-language home for LaLiga in the US from 2021-22 through 2028-29.
The agreement, which begins in August, is worth $175m per year or $1.4bn total. As such, it is the most lucrative soccer media rights deal ever secured in the US, eclipsing the $1bn paid by NBC Sports for rights to the English Premier League, a six-year deal which runs through the 2021-22 season.
The agreement was made possible after current rights-holder beIN Sports and LaLiga agreed to a “strategic buy back” of rights in North America in order to facilitate the deal with the Walt Disney Co., ESPN’s parent company. The Qatar-based broadcaster described LaLiga’s repurchase of the rights from 2021-22 to 2023-24 – the final three seasons of the existing beIN contract – as “significant.”
The new rights deal will give LaLiga a far greater platform to grow its brand in the US due to ESPN’s far stronger position in the US media landscape than beIN Sports, which has struggled to maintain its presence in the region in recent years after it was dropped by Comcast Xfinity and AT&T’s DirecTV in a dispute over carriage fees.
ESPN is already the home of the Copa del Rey, Copa de la Reina, and Supercopa de España, and has an expansive international soccer portfolio on streaming service ESPN+, which is now up to approximately 13.8 million subscribers.
The achievement is all the more remarkable considering LaLiga North America had just one employee when it started in August 2018 – the former Televisa and Univision executive Boris Gartner – and a highly-optimistic business plan that had been laid out by Relevent Sports.
“This didn’t happen out of chance or we were in the right place at the right time…we really worked our ass off for the past three years to get to this point,” Gartner, LaLiga North America’s chief executive, tells SportBusiness. “I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to go back to the first board meeting we had with the proposed plan and you look back three years later how it’s played out exactly as we planned. We knew that the theory was the right one and that execution would be key to it.
“Now we have a [media rights] deal that goes through the 2028-29 season, we’re now adding Mexico, we have 15 years (plus a possible five-year extension) of the joint venture that’s going to be incredibly good for LaLiga, the clubs and for soccer in the US, for Relevent…and it’s opening up a whole new set of opportunities in this business throughout the world,” Gartner says.
El Clasico Miami cemented relationship
The origins of the LaLiga-Relevent Sports partnership can be directly traced back to El Clasico Miami, the first staging of the iconic Real Madrid v FC Barcelona rivalry in the US, which took place at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, in July 2017, as part of the ICC men’s tournament.
More than 66,000 fans attended the high-profile global event, which generated a reported $38m in direct revenue, and was, notably, given widespread coverage by ESPN, the US media rights holder of the ICC.
From December 2016 until July 2017, Relevent Sports worked tirelessly with LaLiga president Javier Tebas, his management team and both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona to secure their blessing to allow the ICC to stage El Clasico on American soil.
Through that process, Relevent Sports began to build a close relationship with Tebas and with the management team of LaLiga.
In turn, Relevent executives began to better understand and appreciate what Tebas and his team had done to professionalize and commercialize LaLiga business operations, which included the introduction of centralized TV rights and international growth through the LaLiga Global Network, which has placed around 45 business associates across international territories.
At the time, LaLiga used a traditional agency model to sell its media rights globally and was committed to a long-term US broadcast relationship with beIN Sports, which remains a valued global partner of the league.
Relevent executives, though, felt that LaLiga stood a far greater chance of securing broader distribution in the valuable American market, as well as increased media revenues, with the help of a local partner with extensive experience of the local market and widespread contacts.
“We felt that there was an opportunity to find a local partner who would have boots on the ground that could help [Tebas] grow the audience and ultimately find wider distribution and dollars, which his clubs would want, in a better way that was done in a traditional agency model,” explains Danny Sillman, Relevent Sports chief executive.
“Rather they could [utilize] someone like Relevent who could be a catalyst to grow through activations, youth events, grassroots, content development and distribution…but effectively getting LaLiga closer to its fans,” he says.
In April 2017, Relevent Sports pitched the idea of a joint venture partnership to Tebas, which was favorably received by the league and its clubs.
As part of this process, Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of Relevent Sports as well as the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins, provided crucial in-depth detail to LaLiga executives into how the NFL had grown its brand internationally through regular-season games in London and how the ICC had helped European clubs grow in the US.
Relevent thought it had a deal with LaLiga. Spanish regulators, however, ruled that a request for proposal (RFP) was required for such a deal. In a further surprise, LaLiga executives then informed Relevent that the agency would have to compete with major rivals such as Endeavor, Wasserman, CAA, and Elevate for the joint venture partnership.
Two days before El Clasico Miami, all the interested parties met with LaLiga in the US to pitch their case for the venture. Thanks in large part to the success of the Real Madrid v FC Barcelona fixture, Relevent was awarded the deal shortly afterwards.
The two parties then had to negotiate the agreement and in August 2018 a 15-year partnership, with potential for a five-year extension, was finalized. Gartner was brought in to run the entity, with the full support of Relevent staff.
Relevent’s plan to move beyond events into media business
LaLiga North America is a 50-50 joint venture partnership between Relevent and LaLiga. It currently covers the US and Canada, and recently announced plans to expand its business operations into Mexico.
As part of the agreement, Relevent Sports provided start-up capital – believed to be around $10m – and the pulling power of the ICC tournaments, as well as the experience and expertise of its staff. LaLiga, for its part, contributed its wider intellectual property including original programming, content, licensing, merchandising, sponsorship rights, and grassroots activations.
Notably, LaLiga North America also secured the rights to broker LaLiga media rights deals in the region. Previously, the Mediapro agency provided this service.
After costs are covered, LaLiga and Relevent split the revenues of sponsorship deals – for example with Camarena Tequila, Verizon, and PointsBet. LaLiga North America also earns a commission on media rights sales, which is split 50-50 between Relevent and the league. The media rights revenue itself goes to the LaLiga and the clubs.
Starting with just one staff member in August 2018, the New York City-based LaLiga North America now has 25 people on staff – 10 employees on the business front, including one in Toronto, and 15 employees operating its English- and Spanish-language content unit in Guadalajara, Mexico. Soon, three more staff members will be added in Mexico.
In the build-up to El Clasico Miami, Relevent Sports had been looking to expand its business operations beyond events and into the media industry. It was natural, then, that Relevent executives looked to seize on the opportunity to develop a wider, more meaningful partnership with LaLiga as the two parties forged strong ties in late 2016 and early 2017.
“It was an opportunistic relationship that developed through El Clasico with LaLiga where we were able to grab the bull by the horns and partner with them to grow a media business,” Sillman says.
“It was always part of our growth plan but it was really serendipitous in the relationship with LaLiga in 2017 in seeing how progressive their management team was, how thoughtful they were with international growth that it was the right time and the right partner,” he says.
Making transition from beIN Sports to ESPN
To some surprise, in August 2019 LaLiga signed an extension to its long-standing partnership in the US and Canada with beIN Sports through to the end of the 2023-24 season.
At the time, beIN Sports was suffering from a series of carriage issues, which severely hampered its distribution across the US, and it was believed that LaLiga would seek a new broadcast partner.
But due to the fact that beIN is a valued international media rights partner of LaLiga and offered lucrative renewal terms in the States – believed to be $130m per season – LaLiga decided to stay with the network.
As part of the deal with Relevent to establish LaLiga North America in 2018, LaLiga also retained the right to renew with beIN in the US when their agreement ended in 2020, a deal that was eventually struck a year early.
“The renewal terms at the time were great [financially]. Beyond the renewal option that LaLiga had, we collectively decided at that moment that it was the best decision we could make,” Gartner says. “At that point we had also created the content studio in Guadalajara and were cranking out content every week in English and Spanish and we thought that was a patch where we could overcompensate for the lack of distribution.”
According to Sillman, the beIN Sports deal also served a purpose “because of the value that it established for the league in this territory.”
From the outset of the creation of LaLiga North America, its staff members were constantly speaking to executives from the likes of CBS, ESPN, NBC, DAZN, and Turner Sports trying to gauge their interest in LaLiga and global soccer rights in the build-up to the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which is being held in the US, Canada and Mexico.
When LaLiga executives came to the conclusion that the league would be better off moving on from beIN, and arranged a deal to buy back its rights from the network and try to sell them to another major US broadcaster, there was no shortage of offers.
“There was no one who said they weren’t interested, it was just a matter of finding the right fit and the right price,” Gartner says. “One of the key pieces was not having the rights split by language [English and Spanish] on different networks.”
SportBusiness understands that ESPN sought to acquire LaLiga rights for two main reasons.
Firstly, streaming service ESPN+ is believed to be lagging behind on its Hispanic subscriber targets and LaLiga offers immense strategic value to secure these goals.
Secondly, ESPN is doubtful that it will succeed in acquiring US rights to the English Premier League next year and, after recently losing the rights to Serie A to CBS Sports, LaLiga acts as something of an insurance policy.
Joint venture partnership could be replicated in other markets
According to Sillman, Relevent Sports has the capacity to partner with other global soccer leagues in a similar venture in the US but will instead focus on growing its successful partnership with LaLiga internationally.
“Right now we’re really focused on LaLiga,” Sillman says. “We have a great partner. We found someone in Javier Tebas and the clubs and the management team that we trust, which is paramount to everything. For now we’re very focused on how do we scale that relationship into Mexico and Central America and other territories?”
The success of the LaLiga North America operation has proven that it is a model that could be replicated in other markets. Following LaLiga North America’s recent expansion into Mexico, it is possible that the joint venture could expand into other international territories depending on the nuances of those local markets.
“We made significant commitments to LaLiga in 2017 and 2018 and to look back now and to have over-delivered to those clubs is just fire for us to keep growing the model,” Sillman says. “We had always had interest in scaling the business but we couldn’t do it until we proved that it had worked.
“When you’re successful it doesn’t mean anything but give you the opportunity to do the next thing – and that is how we see it. This is a proof of concept to keep scaling and expanding. It’s the start line for what we can do for LaLiga and the sport and gives us the credibility to go explore expanding our media business,” he says.