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La Liga Football Sports Marketing

La Liga to show regular fixtures on Facebook Live as part of broadcast innovation

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By Tony Connelly | Sports Marketing Reporter

February 20, 2017 | 3 min read

La Liga has announced a deal with Facebook to live stream regular matches on the social media platform.

Messi in action against Leganes

Messi in action against Leganes

The governing body for the top two divisions of club football in Spain will show free broadcasts of the Primera División’s Friday night fixtures on Facebook.

The deal was made possible through a partnership with the league’s technical services supplier Mediapro and will run until the end of the current season.

It kicked off on Friday (17 February) when Granada’s 4-1 victory of Real Betis was streamed on La Liga’s official Facebook page. One of the league’s official broadcast partners, Gol, also streamed the match on its Facebook profile.

"This is a commitment to innovation, framed within the strategy of digital development of La Liga, with the goal that all fans of Spanish football can enjoy the league," said an official statement.

The deal with Facebook builds on La Liga’s live streaming ambitions which saw it become the first European football league to live stream a match to Facebook Live when it broadcast a fixture from the Women’s La Liga in May last year.

League bosses hope that by being an early adopter of new digital broadcast models, such as Facebook Live, it will be better positioned to challenge the dominance of the Premier League.

When discussing the initial live stream experiment with Facebook in May Nacho Trujillo, managing director of innovation and global development at La Liga, said: “We have to assume that the Premier League has won the TV battle but we want to be on top when it comes to new ways to deliver content online.

"There’s no doubt that in three or four years our business model will be different because the way fans are consuming content is changing so quickly."

There are currently three more Friday night La Liga matches scheduled for the remaining three months of the season, however more matches could be moved to a Friday at a later stage. The next Facebook La Liga live stream will take place on 24 February with Las Palmas taking on Real Sociedad.

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