DAZN, the global sports subscription streaming platform, has today (September 6) announced the acquisition of domestic and global rights to Spanish women’s soccer’s top division for the next five seasons.
Through a deal with the La Liga Profesional de Futbol Femenino (LPFF) body, DAZN will cover the Primera Division Femenina top-tier league in all territories in which it has a presence, including Spain, from the start of 2022-23 until the end of the 2026-27 season.
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Domestically, DAZN will stream every match from the 16-team league live, with seven out of the eight games per match week being covered exclusively. In total, this will come to 240 matches over the five campaigns.
For an international audience, meanwhile, DAZN has said that the best games each week will be covered live, while it will also show highlights and analysis of every fixture, as well as pre and post-match interviews.
The LPFF launched a domestic and international broadcast rights tender for the new season on August 24, with a deadline for bids of September 1.
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Packages on offer covered Spain and Andorra, the European Union, and the rest of the world.
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By GlobalDataThe first reports intimating that DAZN would bid came through at that point.
The coverage will begin this weekend (September 10 and 11), as the 2022-23 season gets underway with the first matchday.
Shay Segev, DAZN Group’s chief executive, said: “We couldn’t be prouder to build on our commitment to increasing the visibility of women’s soccer by becoming the new global broadcaster for LPFF. We want to make the players, coaches, and clubs household names and an inspiration for the next generation of players and fans around the world.”
Last season, Spanish public service broadcaster RTVE covered one match per week from the Primera Division Femenina, with that deal only struck in October 2021.
The delay in securing a broadcaster for last season was due to Mediapro, the Spanish sports rights agency and broadcaster (and owner of RTVE), withdrawing from its initial contract to show the games at the last minute, citing a lack of consensus from the clubs over how the league’s audiovisual rights should be exploited in future.
In terms of other Spanish rights held by DAZN meanwhile, the service holds joint rights to men’s soccer’s top-tier LaLiga alongside Spanish telecoms giant Movistar, in a deal struck last December and worth $5.59 billion from 2022-23 through to the end of 2026-27.
The previous LaLiga rights-holder was Telefonica, through a three-year deal that expired in May this year.
In April, RTVE secured free-to-air rights to cover all matches played by the women’s national team until the end of 2023, after agreeing on a deal with the RFEF national governing body.
The broadcaster’s contract covers all competitive and friendly matches the national team will play in 2022 and 2023, including Euro 2022 matches and qualifying matches for the 2023 World Cup.
Both DAZN and RTVE, meanwhile, covered the final of last season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League, which saw Spanish heavyweights Barcelona Femenina lose 3-1 to Olympique Lyonnais from France.
Barcelona were the runaway winners of last season’s Primera Division Femenina, not dropping a point across the entire 30-game campaign.
Last month (August 17), LaLiga was named as the exclusive commercial agent of the Primera Division Femenina for the next five years after striking a deal with the LPFF.
Under the agreement, LaLiga will market the commercial rights for the women’s league, including all official sponsorships and licenses, from the upcoming 2022-23 season through 2027-28. The deal does not include broadcast rights.
LaLiga has pledged the agreement will see at least €42 million ($43.4 million) injected into the women’s league, with deals ranging from title sponsorship to competition licenses.
The LPFF was established by the RFEF last year in preparation for the professionalization of women’s club soccer in the country for the upcoming season. While the organization sits as part of the RFEF, it enjoys full autonomy over decisions, like LaLiga.
Under professionalization laws in Spain, the RFEF will hand over the organization of the league to LPFF and clubs will now have the right to manage commercial and broadcasting rights, as well as their income.
Image: Quality Sport Images/Getty Images
