Spanish football league La Liga today announced that social media giant Facebook will air the matches in Indian subcontinent for three years.
The deal will allow hundreds of millions of south Asian users to watch top-tier Spanish football matches for free. The three-season deal commences with the 2018-19 campaign kicking off on August 17.
La Liga hailed the deal as a “one of a kind” agreement, with matches shown “free to air”, giving it a wider reach in the Indian subcontinent. Facebook has an estimated 270 million users in India alone.
"Now with Facebook, La Liga has broken new ground, signing its first broadcast agreement ever with a social media platform," it said in a statement.
Facebook said it would show all 380 first division matches of Spain's topflight football league to people in eight countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
The Facebook community in the eight countries will be able to watch La Liga Santander coverage on a live and on-demand basis through multiple devices. The matches would be available on the official La Liga Facebook page as well as individual club pages, the statement added.
Facebook displaced Sony, which previously held the rights to live screen La Liga matches in the Indian subcontinent. Financial details of the Facebook-La Liga deal has not been revealed.
In addition to the live matches, shoulder programming, including a full range of weekly preview shows and highlights, will also be offered.
"We are thrilled to team up with Facebook to bring the millions of La Liga fans in the Indian subcontinent even closer to the action. La Liga sets the standard for football in the world and we are delighted that more people than ever before will have the opportunity to watch our matches live and for free through Facebook in the region," said Javier Tebas, president, La Liga.
For major matches, viewers can see interactive studio coverage hosted by Joe Morrison.
"We see this as a great opportunity to not only bring people together around world-class football, but also help LaLiga reach new audiences and grow its visibility in a key development market," said Peter Hutton, head - global live sports programming, Facebook.
Facebook has been bidding on sports rights over the past two years in an effort to retain users and attract new ones to its platform. Facebook has screened Major League Baseball matches in the US, and recently reached a deal to show some La Liga and Italian Serie A football matches in the UK.
In India, the social media giant made an unsuccessful $600 million bid to acquire digital rights to air Indian Premier League last year.
—With inputs from PTI