SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Spain’s Council of Ministers has banned Real Madrid & Barcelona from exclusively negotiating their television rights deals, in the upcoming and future La Liga broadcast licensing negotiations.
The two biggest football clubs in La Liga (Spain’s premier football division) will be forced from 2016 to share in a collective TV Rights pool which will be distributed and controlled by La Liga governance. The new media policies implemented by the government will force Spanish football to take a similar approach to TV rights distributions as the English Premier League.
La Liga governance and the Spanish Sports Council, had faced increasing pressure from Spanish football clubs to restructure the current TV rights framework in order to distribute money in a fairer and more sustainable manner.
Numerous Spanish ministers and football club owners had accused FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, of acting in self-interest and creating a two player monopoly on TV Rights for Spanish Football, thus creating an unbalanced state of play in the league
Of total revenues from the sale of the rights, 90% will got to all of the clubs in La Liga – half of that money will be shared equally between the 20 clubs, with the other half divided up according to criteria including recent performance and size.
The restrictions on Real Madrid and FC Barcelona will only apply to Spanish TV rights, International broadcast agreements will be allowed to be negotiated individually by the football clubs.
