Spanish football league LaLiga has invited bids for the broadcasting rights in the Indian Subcontinent. The tender includes the rights to broadcast the competition in eight countries which includes India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bidders are invited to submit offers for the 2021/22 season onwards covering a minimum of three and a maximum of five seasons. In a bid to grow the reach of the competition, the tender offers a range of packages for the audio-visual rights to facilitate a wider distribution. The deadline to submit bids is February 8.

“Designed to meet the needs of a diverse and fast-growing market, the tender provides different packages to help partners achieve the broadest distribution. These include rights to show all matches from LaLiga Santander, LaLiga SmartBank, LaLiga’s 24/7 English-language channel LaLigaTV and additional support programming, on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis,” an official statement added.

Facebook rights

In 2018, Facebook had acquired the football league’s broadcast rights of the Indian subcontinent for three years for an undisclosed sum. In 2020, Laliga had witnessed a 72 per cent increase in viewership in India after the league restarted in June. The Indian subcontinent accounts for 10 per cent of the social media followers of the league and nearly 5 per cent of which comes from India.

“We are very satisfied with our current partner which has provided data to demonstrate our consistent growth in the Indian Subcontinent and our engagement with football fans. We see a huge opportunity going forward to deepen these connections and expand the profile of the competition,” said Melcior Soler, Audiovisual Director of LaLiga.