The departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi have taken their two big stars out of the Spanish league, and by all estimates - were supposed to reduce the level of interest that a league generates for it among hundreds of millions of spectators around the world.
Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person.
La Liga reported this week on the completion of the tender for the sale of the broadcasting rights of its games in Spain and Andorra, and the results of the proceedings prove that at least in the economic context - its power was not harmed even in the absence of Ronaldo and Messi.
The two winners - "Mobister" and "DAZN" - are expected to pay for the right to broadcast the Spanish league games in the next five seasons, starting with the 2022/23 season, a huge amount of 4.95 billion euros.
Whoever hurried to eulogize Spanish football, revealed to his surprise that the revenue from the broadcasting rights during this period will be higher than what was paid for the previous five years, when the rivalry between Ronaldo's Real Madrid and Messi's Barcelona was at its peak.
Ronaldo in United uniform.
La Liga was not expensive, Photo: EPI
La Liga bosses can pat themselves on the back, also because other major European leagues have recently struggled to raise revenue from the sale of broadcasting rights, and sometimes even have to agree to lower receipts than they used to get in the not-too-distant past.
Thus, for example, the same DAZN acquired a little over six months ago the right to broadcast the Serie A games in Italy for four seasons, for about 2.5 billion euros.
In Italy it is much cheaper A
simple calculation leads to the conclusion that the price per season in Italy is much cheaper than the price per season in Spain.
To the chagrin of the Italians, it even went down drastically, as the previous agreement gave Serie A a fee of 2.9 billion euros for three years of broadcasting.
It is doubtful if anyone can attribute such a large drop in Ronaldo's move from Italy to England, or in any other change.
Earlier this year, La Liga chiefs agreed to sell broadcasting rights to other regions, such as the US (for eight seasons), Mexico and Latin America, in an attempt to bolster global deployment and break into new audiences.
The Corona epidemic has intensified the importance of selling broadcasting rights as a major revenue stream for teams in Europe's major football leagues.
In a situation where the restrictions on gatherings kept ticket revenues to a minimum, and at the same time the sponsors also reduced the payments for sponsorships - the broadcasts became a lifeline, and new key players grew.
DAZN, which is controlled by a business corporation owned by capital tycoon Len Belvatnik, is the main one among them.
Unlike traditional broadcasters, DAZN also offers streaming services, which are gaining increasing popularity among young audiences.
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