Barcelona and Real Madrid matches to be shown free on Facebook in India as social network sign landmark La Liga deal

Living La Liga loca! Spanish football fans in India can watch matches for free on Facebook
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Tony Mogan14 August 2018

La Liga have announced a landmark deal with Facebook that will allow users in the Indian sub-continent to watch every Spanish top flight game for the next three seasons.

The social network has signed an exclusive deal to broadcast all 380 matches this season to viewers in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, The Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

It means India's estimated 270million Facebook users will be able to watch every single Barcelona and Real Madrid match free of charge for the next three years.

Facebook and La Liga are yet to provide financial details of the deal. Sony Pictures Network, the region’s preview provider of La Liga coverage, reportedly paid €32m for broadcasting rights between 2014 and 2018.

The move is the latest from Facebook to move into the lucrative world of sports broadcasting having secured a deal to show Major League Baseball in the United States earlier this year.

A deal has also been struck in the UK with Eleven Sports, with select matches from La Liga and Serie A to be streamed live for free across the season; starting with Girona vs Real Valladolid and Chievo vs Juventus this weekend.

However, Facebook’s Director of Global Live Sports Peter Hutton has described the social network’s latest venture in the Indian sub-continent as an “experiment.”

“We are looking at a few other deals that are quite close to completion but this is not about going out and buying a huge amount of content worldwide,” Hutton told Reuters.

“We are looking at specific rights in specific markets and to try to learn from data from those experiences and work out what the next step is. If you rush into too many deals at once, you can’t do it properly.”

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