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La Liga has withdrawn a tender for broadcast rights to Spanish soccer’s top-flight in the UK and Ireland after receiving ‘no satisfactory bids’.
The league’s organising body gave broadcasters a deadline of 25th July to submit offers for one or a combination of six audio-visual packages for the next three seasons, as part of a tender process announced by the league on 11th July.
The rights have now been taken off the table, meaning that the league has been unable to find a media partner to host coverage of the 2019/20 campaign, due to start on 16th August, in the UK and Irish markets. A solution to UK distribution will be sought and SportsPro understands that there will be a follow up to the UK tender.
Joris Evers, La Liga’s head of communications, said: “After assessing all bids and required additional documentation from participating bidders, La Liga has declared the tender null and void because no satisfactory bids were received.”
It is understood that Eleven Sports, the international over-the-top (OTT) service, wants to continue showing La Liga matches in the region, after cutting short an exclusive rights agreement with the league before the end of last season, and will follow La Liga’s guidance on next steps.
Eleven, which ousted pay-TV broadcaster Sky last summer to become La Liga’s exclusive media partner in the UK and Ireland until the of the 2020/21 campaign.
However, the company’s UK operation fell into difficulties after failing to secure a linear distribution partner for a prospective rights deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and relinquished a number of its contracts, including Serie A soccer.
Having managed to retain La Liga rights to the end of last season on a non-exclusive basis, Eleven confirmed earlier in the month that it was ‘always part’ of the new tender process since a mutual restructuring of its agreement with La Liga earlier in the year.
The rights were subsequently shared between Eleven, the pay-TV network Premier Sports, and UK commercial broadcaster ITV.
La Liga has withdrawn a tender for broadcast rights to Spanish soccer’s top-flight in the UK and Ireland after receiving ‘no satisfactory bids’.
The league’s organising body gave broadcasters a deadline of 25th July to submit offers for one or a combination of six audio-visual packages for the next three seasons, as part of a tender process announced by the league on 11th July.
The rights have now been taken off the table, meaning that the league has been unable to find a media partner to host coverage of the 2019/20 campaign, due to start on 16th August, in the UK and Irish markets. A solution to UK distribution will be sought and SportsPro understands that there will be a follow up to the UK tender.
Joris Evers, La Liga’s head of communications, said: “After assessing all bids and required additional documentation from participating bidders, La Liga has declared the tender null and void because no satisfactory bids were received.”
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It is understood that Eleven Sports, the international over-the-top (OTT) service, wants to continue showing La Liga matches in the region, after cutting short an exclusive rights agreement with the league before the end of last season, and will follow La Liga’s guidance on next steps.
Eleven, which ousted pay-TV broadcaster Sky last summer to become La Liga’s exclusive media partner in the UK and Ireland until the of the 2020/21 campaign.
However, the company’s UK operation fell into difficulties after failing to secure a linear distribution partner for a prospective rights deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and relinquished a number of its contracts, including Serie A soccer.
Having managed to retain La Liga rights to the end of last season on a non-exclusive basis, Eleven confirmed earlier in the month that it was ‘always part’ of the new tender process since a mutual restructuring of its agreement with La Liga earlier in the year.
The rights were subsequently shared between Eleven, the pay-TV network Premier Sports, and UK commercial broadcaster ITV.
