Having failed to get a slice of the lucrative sports rights pie in India after multiple attempts last year, social media giants Facebook have bagged the rights to La Liga – one of the most watched football leagues in India.
Facebook, who also have the EPL rights in Thailand and Vietnam will be in direct competition now with Star India. EPL and Star’s contract, which is a three year cycle will come up for renewal in October.
Facebook, who are believed to be in talks with Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo for a reality show, is putting all their efforts to bag the most biggest and most lucrative live sports contracts. At the helm of all the planning is Peter Hutton, a sports broadcasting veteran.
The Mark Zuckerberg-led company has been through some rough times recently with controversies related to data sharing, and has realised the importance of unparalleled engagement of users which live sporting events offer. The acquisition of sporting rights will take the social media giant a notch higher in terms of scalability and most importantly, will make it the new go-to destination for sports buffs.
“TV viewing is going through a major change. If you look at the younger cohorts, streaming and OTT platforms are the ones that are increasing in consumption," Sowmya Iyer, founder & CEO, DViO, told Moneycontrol.com.
“Television channels are investing in their own OTT platforms like Viacom, Star, Sony, etc. It’s not a threat, but rather it is going through a transformation because people’s viewing habits are changing. The experience of watching sports today is not the way it used to be, now there is screen, mobile and social viewing. Now with Facebook coming into the picture, I think watching and social interaction - two key things to sports viewing - is coming together,” Iyer said.
During the IPL and BCCI media rights auctions, Facebook made their intentions clear – that live sport is important and they are willing to break the bank for that.
“There is a lot of room for content and different sporting properties, given that we have so many distribution platforms, especially digital platforms. There is enough interest in non-cricket properties and ISL has shown us that,” Iyer said.
Zuckerberg’s business acumen and the ability to blow his competition out of the water before they get a chance to enter the fight. Testament to his impact can be gauged from this statement from media baron Rupert Murdoch.
“The one that’s coming at sport is Facebook. They unsuccessfully bid just for the digital rights of half of the Indian cricket for USD 600 million, so that was a warning shot you know,” Murdoch said last year.
Multiple attempts to reach out to Facebook on this subject did not elicit any response.
The two big giants in Indian sports broadcasting – Star India and Sony Pictures Networks India – which used to jostle with each other to get hold of the biggest sports properties, now have a bigger and more powerful entity to deal with.
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