Telefonica Signs $1.5 Billion Deal With DAZN for LaLiga Rights

(Bloomberg) -- DAZN Group Ltd. sold broadcasting rights for Spain’s top football league games to Telefonica SA in a deal valued at 1.4 billion euros ($1.54 billion).

The two firms had originally each won rights to broadcast about half of Spain’s top soccer league. The new deal announced Tuesday allows the Spanish carrier to broadcast the games it lost to DAZN after a 5 billion-euro auction in November. 

Telefonica will pay 280 million euros per season for five years, it said in a press release Tuesday. The Spanish company will offer the games on its TV platform Movistar+. 

DAZN will still be able to stream the content it won at the auction last year on its own platform.

The two companies had reached an agreement in February but postponed its announcement when the war broke out in Ukraine, local website El Confidencial reported on Tuesday. 

Telefonica is currently running a strategic review of its TV business, which has been a major part of its Spanish commercial strategy since it acquired it in 2014. It recently told Vivendi SA its Spanish pay-TV unit is not for sale, after the French media group inquired about the possibility of acquiring the broadcaster.

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