La Liga UK Rights…lost by Eleven Sports ? moves to Premier and ITV4

Premier Sports has confirmed it has acquired the Pay TV rights to show Spain’s La Liga, weeks after it secured the rights to show a number of international leagues previously covered by Eleven Sports.

Premier Sports will show four games per round / week across Premier Sports 1 and 2 via Sky and Virgin Media. Premier will also broadcast the weekly magazine programs LaLiga World and the LaLiga Show as well as a weekly highlights show featuring all the action from every game.

Free-to-air coverage of La Liga is heading to ITV4 with immediate effect.

Starting on Sunday with Levante v Real Madrid, weekly matches will be shown on ITV4, along with a midweek highlights programme. The best of the action from La Liga, including games involving Spanish footballing giants such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, will feature in ITV4’s coverage until the end of the season in May, when this particular deal runs out.

Eleven Sports has remained silent about its service, having lost many sports rights in the last few weeks. It is thought that the inability to secure coverage on any linear pay TV platform (eg Sky or Virgin) may have caused the rights holders to invoke clauses in the contracts. Although they are still saying and advertising they are the Home of La Liga, and will be apparently showing 10 La Liga games a week… Maybe they will still show 10 games a week for the rest of the season, but have sublet the some rights to Premier and ITV to help recover some of the costs of their contract. Maybe this is just for the remainder of this season only, and then the rights return to auction…?