USA: LaLiga buys back 2021-2024 TV rights from beIN and sells them to ESPN until 2028-29 ($1.4bn)

ESPN has acquired the US broadcasting rights (in English and Spanish) to LaLiga Santander for the 2021-2029 cycle (eight seasons), announced the US pay-TV bouquet on 13/05/2021. These rights are worth an estimated $1.4bn (€1.16bn) or $175m (€144m) per season according to US media, making it the largest TV deal ever signed by a European football league in the USA (see table below).

The broadcasting rights to LaLiga Santander in the United States and Canada were until now held by the Qatari pay-TV group beIN Media Group, which had renewed them for the 2020-2024 cycle, on 15/08/2019. LaLiga has therefore bought out the last three years of its contract with beIN in order to negotiate this deal with ESPN.

ESPN will broadcast all 380 LaLiga Santander matches as well as some LaLiga SmartBank matches on its OTT platform ESPN+ (launched in April 2018 and with 13.8 million subscribers as of May 2021). Some LaLiga Santander fixtures will also be shown on ESPN's linear pay-TV channels (over 80 million subscribers to the pay TV package).

• ESPN+ is priced at $5.99 per month (or $59.99 per year) in…