Spain’s leading pay-TV operators have decided to make a stand against the excessive cost of Champions League rights.
Quoting market sources, El Economista reports that Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone have learned the lesson of recent years and will try not to make the same mistakes.
Instead, they will negotiate downwards the next renewals of contracts with Mediapro, the current rights holder.
In their view, to make football profitable they should charge subscribers more than €50 a month, which is completely unrealistic. The negotiations with Mediapro for Champions League rights will begin next year.
The rights for the rights for three seasons, beginning 2018/19, were secured by Mediapro last summer in a deal worth €1.1 billion and the company now plans to monetise its investment through as many pay-TV platforms as possible.
Telefónica (Movistar) already pays around €1.050 million a season for all the football (including the Partizado and Champions League) it shows and to break even would require all its pay-TV customers to subscribe to football and pay €23.8 a month, even in the competition-free months of July and August.
Meanwhile, Vodafone España paid a combined total of €318 million for sports rights in the last financial year and to break even on its investment would require all its pay-TV subscribers to pay €20 a month.
A similar amount would be required in the case of Orange España’s pay-TV subscribers, who number half as many as those of Vodafone España’s. El Economista notes that Orange’s CEO Laurent Paillassot has already described the cost of football rights as “crazy”.
