Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has struck a deal with La Liga. Spain’s top flight soccer division La Liga announced on Tuesday a landmark deal with Facebook which will allow viewers in the Indian sub-continent to watch every game over the next three seasons for free on the social network.
La Liga has been the number one ranked team in global football (soccer) for a while but has been struggling behind the English Premier League in terms of popularity. The EPL has incredible viewership all around the world and has made the Spanish league look inferior even though the Spanish league is ranked above the EPL generally. And now, this looks like a good measure, to tackle that publicity problem plaguing the Spanish football league.
A statement from La Liga said all 380 league matches for the new season, which begins on Friday, Although the details of the deal are not made public, this definitely is a multi-million dollar deal. Previous owners to these rights Sony pictures paid a reported $32 million for the right to broadcast La Liga between 2014 and 2018.
Facebook had ventured into broadcasting live sports events since 2017 when they began to broadcast the Major League Baseball games. But in this one, there is going to be a massive turn out definitely since the best league in the world is in the mix.
“One of our goals for the last two years has been to offer content to the widest audience possible, so partnering with free platforms like Facebook, which has 270 million users in India, is key to us.” -Alfredo Bermejo, La Liga’s head of digital strategy said.
Facebook Will Only Show La Liga Games In Specific Regions
This development is location biased. For now, the games will be available to Facebook users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan only. Only time will tell if this benefit will extend to other countries. Although Facebook has a habit of starting with some regions and going global with time or at least increasing participating countries.
Why India And It’s Subcontinent For The La Liga – Facebook partnership?
This is a big step tech-wise, social-wise too. But I don’t quite understand the motive behind this move. Developing countries like India and it’s Subcontinents like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, The Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will all be enjoying this development.
But why not other regions? Why not developed countries where the internet is at the people’s fingertips? Why not countries where data connections move at the speed of light? Why did Facebook choose regions where internet is not so reliable? If we roll back the years, we will recall that Facebook launched the messenger lite App for countries like these where the internet is not so reliable and budget smartphones are popular.
Now Facebook wants them to stream 90 minutes in that kind of situation? It’s Unfortunate that I can’t find answers to these questions and I assume la Liga games are not aired on TV in those countries. Probably, Facebook will be the only option available to see the games over there. I don’t know for sure but I have a strong belief in my guess because that is the only way of choosing these regions can make a lot of sense. Nonetheless, it will work out and still serve it’s purpose regardless of how bad the limitations can be.
