TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Barcelona have agreed to sell the rights to broadcast their La Liga games next season to Spanish telecom giant Telefonica, ending a long-term cooperation with Mediapro.
The deal was stamped at a Barca board meeting on Monday, and Telefonica will also take over Barca's television channel, the club said on their website (www.fcbarcelona.es).
Barca did not mention the amount that Telefonica had agreed to pay, but local media reported the amount was around 140 million euros, nearly the same as what Mediapro had paid. Mediapro owns TV rights for a majority of La Liga clubs.
Barca's current deal only apply for one season as Spanish clubs are set to adopt a system of collective bargaining for TV rights similar to the ones used in other top European leagues from the 2016/2017 season.
The Spanish government has vowed to set a law mandating collective bargaining but has encountered several problems, triggering some clubs threatening to strike as a form of protest.
Pressure has grown after the English Premier League agreed this month on a new collective TV rights deal with Sky and BT Sport for the 2016-2019 season worth nearly US$8 billion.
Many clubs in La Liga including Espanyol, Valencia and Sevilla, are expecting that a collective deal would enable them to demand more money from broadcasters so as to provide more equity to create a more level playing field.
Real Madrid, the world's richest club by income, and Barca, the fourth richest, both share half the annual La Liga TV money of around 650 million euros, one of the reasons why they usually finish far ahead of their domestic rivals.
According to Esteve Calzada, CEO of Barcelona-based consulting firm Prime Time Sport, the ratio in England between the team that gets the most TV money and the one that gets the least is about 1.5 to 1 while in La Liga it is 10 to 1.
Real and Barca have not published their commitments toward a system of collective bargaining, and some analysts have predicted they will only do so if they are guaranteed to receive the same level of income as they have now.
ANTARA
