Liga Portugal, the organizing body of that country's top-tier soccer league, is reportedly considering selling off a stake in a vehicle that will be set up to manage the competition's commercial and broadcast rights.
The organizing body has hired the Oakvale Capital advisory and consultancy firm to advise on a stake sale, according to Bloomberg, with that publication citing a person familiar with the matter.
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Liga Portugal plans on taking presentations from interested parties at an investor day towards the end of April, Bloomberg's source is cited as saying.
In a statement, London-based Oakvale simply said that it is working alongside Liga Portugal, without going into additional detail.
Liga Portugal is currently working on centralizing its media rights sales from the 2027-28 season onwards, and is expected to go to market with its initial tender for the bundled rights either later this year, or early in 2027.
The body is hoping that a centralized sales process will help eradicate some of the inequality in wealth between the league's top and bottom clubs (the heavyweight teams in the top division – such as Sporting Lisbon, Benfica, and Porto – currently receive vastly more for broadcast rights covering their home games than any other sides).
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By GlobalDataCurrently, most clubs in the 18-team top league sell their own rights, but a law has now been passed legislating that this must change, and that the league must move to a centralized model – as most of the rest of Western Europe's soccer leagues have in place – by 2028-29.
Liga Portugal and the country's soccer federation (the FPF) are working on establishing a new body to handle these sales – the same body that Oakvale is now reportedly working on helping sell a stake in.
In terms of other European soccer leagues to have sold stakes in their media rights businesses in recent years, in 2021, Spain's top-tier LaLiga sold off a 10% stake to the CVC Capital Partners private equity firm for roughly $2.3 billion.
The following year, the same company bought up 13% of the media rights operations of French soccer's premier Ligue 1.
Bloomberg has also reported, meanwhile, that Liga Portugal is also mulling the idea of selling a separate stake in another vehicle that would contain technology, data, and other commercial assets outside of media rights.
Both of these potential transactions would require approval from the league's clubs.
In terms of Oakvale's other sporting interests, it is also involved in securing owners for teams in the upcoming European T20 Premier League cricket property, which is aiming to launch later this year.
