August 16 – Facebook has added more football broadcast rights to its rapidly growing portfolio, this time bringing to its streaming platform UEFA Champions League and UEFA Super Cup rights in Spanish-speaking Latin American territories.
The Spanish-speaking rights will be for the 2018-21 commerical cycle of the Champions League.
UEFA said Facebook will have exclusive free-to-air rights to 32 live matches each season, including the final and UEFA Super Cup. The matches will be available on the UEFA Champions League Facebook Page. Wednesday highlights and magazine programmes will also be shared each match-week on Facebook. The partnership began last night with the Super Cup between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid.
Peter Hutton, Facebook Head of Global Live Sports Programming said: “We’re proud to be the exclusive free-to-air home for UEFA Champions League matches across Latin America for the next three years. This world-renowned competition exemplifies how sports can connect communities, so we look forward to helping fans watch these live matches together and are committed to working closely with our great partners at UEFA to deliver an innovative viewing experience.”
Yesterday Facebook confirmed it had snapped up the rights to show Spain’s LaLiga on the Indian sub-continent in a three-year deal that starts this Friday with the kick-off of the new league season.
Facebook will stream all 380 of the season’s matches to users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Facebook has 348 million users in the region including 270 million in India.
Facebook has also secured rights for live Premier League matches in south-east Asia for an estimated £260 million in early July. That three-season deal from 2019/20 to 2021/22 will see Facebook broadcast 380 games per season in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Speaking on the UEFA deal, Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA Events SA Director of Marketing said: “We are delighted to welcome Facebook to the UEFA family of media partners. As the largest online social media platform globally, Facebook will ensure wide-ranging free-to-air coverage of the world’s most prestigious club competition.”
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