In a difficult time for many families, their domestic economies being punished by the harshness of the pandemic and its collateral consequences in the notable increase in cost of life, it is shocking to see that this country’s favorite leisure product has become an inaccessible excess for a population. good part of it. Today, watching a LaLiga, Champions or Europa League game on television in the living rooms of Spanish homes has become an exercise in financial tightrope. Between 100 and 120 euros per month must be paid by a client Who wants to enjoy, from his sofa, the three most popular club tournaments in this country. Translated into Spanish, a significant number of football fans from
This country does not enjoy its passion from home due to the high prices offered by Movistar + and Orange TV, the only two payment platforms currently offered by LaLiga, the Champions League and the Europa League.
This is precisely one of the two obstacles that football currently faces as a television entertainment product: there are only two payment operators with broadcasting rights. In Spain, there are eight million households subscribed to payment platforms, but only half of them have the possibility of deciding whether or not they want to pay to watch football. Since 2019, most pay TVs they do not consider it profitable to buy LaLiga rights from Telefónica, the Champions League and the Europa League, and have focused their business model on other types of entertainment.
The second of the buts is the price. According to a report by the OCU, Orange TV and Movistar + have raised the cost of watching football on television this season between 5 and 10 euros per month, an increase that at first glance may seem symbolic, but it is not due to the closed exploitation model of football. The operators, aware that they have the most ‘premium’ leisure in their hands, use it as lever to force your customers to contract another series of products such as fiber connection, mobile lines, movie and series packages, or your own pay TV. So that you understand, something similar to a mortgage of the old ones, in which the bank forced you to take out different insurance or pension plans if you wanted to access the money to buy the house.
Annually, the cost of football on television can exceed 1,200 euros. That is what a Movistar + client who wants to see LaLiga, the Champions League and the Europa League would pay. This account comes out of a monthly payment of 120 euros, which also includes 1GB fiber, two mobile lines -one of them with unlimited data- and more than 80 television channels. On OrangeTV, the price is lower, but that does not mean that they ‘give it away’. For about 1,000 euros a year you can enjoy LaLiga, the Champions League and the Europa League, with linked products similar to those offered by Movistar +, but at the cost of the French telecommunications platform. In your case it has a trap: you have to have a 12-month stay, something that does not happen in Movistar +, which at least allows you to cancel if for any reason you want to stop paying those amounts. It is true that both operators, to attract new customers, periodically launch different campaigns in which a discount is offered if you subscribe and by doing so you subscribe to one of the football packages. These, in this particular season, have a duration of 3 to 6 months in which there is a decrease in the monthly fee of between 25 and 50 percent. For regular customers they also usually offer some advantage in order to avoid that their dissatisfaction does not lead to the withdrawal of the platform. A poor consolation that does not hide the question that every football fan asks himself. Why don’t Movistar + and Orange TV offer only football packages?
Commercial strategy
This newspaper contacted both operators in order to find an answer to what so many people question. Unfortunately, water. Orange TV refused to answer, justifying that this week they were presenting their third quarter results and it was not allowed to answer these types of queries. In the case of Telefónica, he resorted to a generalization to avoid the specific query that was addressed to him: «Our commercial strategy is to provide the best service to customers. They can choose between the simplest, such as hiring a mobile line, or the packages that include all the services that Movistar + offers, including football, series, cinema … Clients who do not have contracted any Fusion package can contract only television , through Movistar + Lite ». In this option that they comment, the most economical, you can watch Second Division matches, the Bundesliga or Serie A, but it does not include LaLiga, the Champions or the Europa League. In addition, Telefónica denies that the price of football has risen, as the OCU report states: ” the 21/22 season has the same price as it was in the 20/21 season. The only price increase, of five euros, is for new customers who hire the new Fusion as they have new features, including a device at zero cost ”.
In these last five years only two payment platforms offered soccer as an individual product: Mitele Plus and BeIN Sports. The first, from Mediaset, offered in the 2019-20 season the League and the Champions League for 35 euros per month, but understood that it was not profitable for them and their experience was no more: «Mitele Plus is a small platform that also seeks distribution of contents through a new window, a new oxygen. We also have to see new fishing grounds », assured then the general director of Content of Mediaset Spain, Manuel Villanueva, to justify his short experience in paid football. Two campaigns earlier, in the 2017-18 season, BeIN Sports offered the League and the Champions League for 16.99 euros per month, but in the 18-19 season it lost the rights to the Madrid and Barça matches, as well as the Champions League. , and there his adventure died.
And what about the Copa del Rey? Yes, it is also an extra cost to see the KO tournament whose rights Mediaset has, and DAZN sublicensed, whose cost is 9.99 euros per month. The semifinals and the final can be seen in the open, but during the rest of the rounds until the quarterfinals, only one tie is broadcast in Cuatro or Telecinco, its two national channels free of charge. The rest of the matches are paid in DAZN, which as another great soccer attraction has the rights of the Premier in our country, and does not have any obligation to stay.
The future, in the air
Precisely DAZN, along with Amazon, are the two platforms that can break into the television football scene during the next season. This first week of November is scheduled to open the auction for the rights of the League for the next three, four or five seasons, and whose final result will be known at the beginning of December, when the period of four weeks for operators expires. have submitted their offers. The so-called Pact of Viana, signed during the toughest months of the pandemic, allows LaLiga to take out the television rights contest for more than three years, which was the maximum possible until now. LaLiga believes that the current 36-month structure strangles competition between operators, as is currently the case, and for this reason a new batch structure has been put up for auction that favors the entry of new players, which in turn will allow football to reach more people and at more competitive prices.
Hence, the non-binding report that the CNMC sent to LaLiga last Thursday, October 21, in which it asked that the television rights of our national championship not exceed the usual three years, has not found reciprocity in LaLiga . In fact, from the Employers’ Association it is argued that it is based on resolutions of the European Union of 2010 and, now, the market is very different. In addition, LaLiga assures that it has in its possession reports from legal and commercial firms that indicate that five years favor competition, distribution and the lowest price to consumers, as is already the case in other major European championships such as the Bundesliga or Ligue 1, whose rights are sold for four years.
For LaLiga it is not only important the price for which it sells the television rights of the championship – whose last three-year period from 2019 to 2022 was bought by Telefónica in exchange for 980 million euros, an amount that LaLiga expects to equal or, at least, not lower any more five percent-, but it is also key the distribution of your product, which right now is not the desired one. When Telefónica bought Canal + in 2015, it did so under an obligation. To avoid the monopoly of certain products, it was obliged to sublicense these to other potential buyers, and not at any price, but at the price determined by the CNMC, which is the one that imposed this rule to give the green light to the acquisition.
That idea started from a fair basis for the market, but in practice it has not been like that. If Orange, Vodafone, Euskaltel or any other platform wants to buy back the football rights from Telefónica, it must do so based on the total number of subscribers to its platform and not the number of subscribers who only have football contracted. In this way, the buyback price of football is much more expensive for those who choose to do so. An incomprehensible price formula established by the CNMC that harms operators and, consequently, to the fans: “It is not appropriate and we have expressed this to the CNMC,” said Jean-François Fallacher, CEO of Orange Spain, last February.
That is why Vodafone, the loudest case, He resigned from football three seasons ago to focus on the world of series and cinema, decision from which today he takes his chest. Since 2019, it has gained more than 300,000 subscribers and has already reached 1,600,000 customers. OrangeTV, the only one that has bought football back from Telefónica, has a total of 693,000 subscribers, according to its official data at the end of the third quarter -July to September-, just the time when the football season begins. This data only supposes 12,000 subscribers more than the 681,000 they had in the second quarter, proof that the high price at which football is offered does not seem enough hook to significantly increase the number of customers.
Look at europe
With this panorama, LaLiga is looking for a scenario more similar to what happens in the rest of the large domestic tournaments in Europe, and this is what Tebas has made known to the clubs in the last assemblies. The League wants to reach as many homes as possible in our country, as has been sought with the agreement signed by ESPN. Until last season, BeIN was the chain that broadcast LaLiga in the United States, But little by little it was leaving the main payment platforms in the North American country, which caused the product to reach very few people in the United States. That is not the business model that is desired for LaLiga.
On England, the Premier and the Champions are broadcast by Sky, BT and Amazon. On Germany, the Bundesliga and the Champions is seen by DAZN, Sky and Amazon. On Italy Serie A and the Champions are shown on DAZN, Sky and Amazon. And in France You can enjoy Ligue 1 and the Champions on Canal +, Amazon and BeIN Sports. The prices of all these operators have different offers, depending on whether annual or monthly subscriptions are made, but all of them quite adjusted to the consumer’s pocket.
From the lowest disbursement, in Germany, where you can see Bundesliga, Champions and Europa League if you subscribe to DAZN, Sky and Amazon for just over 35 euros per month, to England, where the total cost of being a customer of the football offer from Sky, BT and Amazon does not exceed 60 euros.
Prices all of them very far from those 100 euros per month, at least, that today is paid in our country to watch football on television, a leisure that has become a luxury product in Spain.
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