La Liga sign 15-year deal to have games played in the US

Zebs

Clare Baldings Daughter plays too much Wordscapes
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La Liga, Spain’s top football league, will hold competitive matches in the US as early as this season, as part of radical plans to secure greater revenues from international audiences.

The matches are an effort by the league, whose clubs include FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, to challenge the global popularity of rival tournaments, such as the English Premier League, which has gained a strong following in the US.

The overseas games form part of a joint venture between La Liga and Relevent Sports, a US promoter backed by Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of NFL team the Miami Dolphins. The tie-up is designed to increase the Spanish league’s revenues from sponsorship and media rights in North America.

More here: https://www.ft.com/content/5ce1926e-a09f-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4
 
Hate it. Won’t be long until the EPL and Serie A follow suit.
 
Football's dead anyway lads...you just know the Premier League would follow suit in the coming years

All about money and taking it away from the fans
 
This is awful. Pay a lot of money for two season tickets. If they start sending our best games abroad will obviously have to reconsider
 
Hate it. Won’t be long until the EPL and Serie A follow suit.

Yep Scudamore (or his successor) will be all over this in the next PL deal. One was signed this summer so won't be for another 2 years but would imagine that's a certainty now.
 
dey terk er jerbs.

Hey, there's still place in Far East/Middle East/Africa that surely can be exploited too.
 
This is awful. Pay a lot of money for two season tickets. If they start sending our best games abroad will obviously have to reconsider

They won't put the best games there. It will be something like Real Madrid v Girona and Barcelona v Betis.
 
Behind a pay-wall. Is it an extra game style, or is it one of the random league games?
 
Haha what? What would they play in the US? Finals?
 
The supporters in Spain should totally boycott games this season, including Barcelona and Real Madrid fans
 
Funny thing is, I can't imagine these match tickets are even close to affordable for folks. Especially once they get scalped.
 
They won't put the best games there. It will be something like Real Madrid v Girona and Barcelona v Betis.

I'm talking about when the PL inevitably follows suit. Then United's games would be the first to be targeted. Maybe you're right that they won't ultimately take away the big ones, but you can also imagine them immediately salivating over the first ever genuine El Clasico played abroad, and our equivalent here (games against City, Liverpool) might go the same way.
 
Knew they'd start getting a bit desperate once Ronaldo left, but this is pathetic.

Biggest surprise is that they've beaten the Premier League to the punch, thought we'd be the first idiots to do it.
 
I don't see the PL doing it. Honestly. Just feel that the people who run our league, despite not being completely "100% for the fans", have some form of connection with us and won't do the match abroad shit.
 
Whatever happened to the premier league's plan for a 39th game played in the US/Asia? I'm sure there was a lot of talk about it a few years ago
 
This is actually a case study in how the PL model of more even distribution of television money between all clubs is a more successful model than the monopolistic La Liga where Barca, Real dictate their own broadcasting rights, separate from the rest of the league. The result, La Liga is seen as a boring, less exciting league, whilst in the PL you have a more competitive spectacle. Obviously foreign ownership also plays a huge part but I the PL have been proven emphatically right in their approach.

Even with these plans, are US fans going to want to watch Eibar vs Murcia played in the US?
 
To be honest if we started doing the community shield abroad I couldn't care less, it's the perfect game to be put in another country if there really is that desperation to do so, but never ever a league game.
 
I don't see the PL doing it. Honestly. Just feel that the people who run our league, despite not being completely "100% for the fans", have some form of connection with us and won't do the match abroad shit.

There's way too much money to be made there both in the short and long term. This will open the floodgates because league and the various are never going to sit back and lose out on the US revenue because of the local base taking a hit.
 
Following on nicely from the BBC Sport article claiming teams could play in empty stadiums and still make money, the match going fan is nothing to these clubs now, "viewers" are all that matters.

They'll artificially pump crowd noises in for the players when everyone sacks off the live games for watching it on their VR Headsets.
 
Which team will have to play one of their home game in the US? They could just have their version of Charity Shield over there, IMO.
 
I don't mind games like Community Shield or maybe EFL cup final or whatever it's called now to be played abroad. However playing PL or in this case La Liga games abroad is ridiculous.
 
You can see Atletico getting shafted in this, they will end up playing in Seattle on a Saturday night while they will then have to travel to Russia on the following Wednesday in the Champions League :rolleyes:

It's an absolute nonsense idea which should be scrapped immediately
 
Following on nicely from the BBC Sport article claiming teams could play in empty stadiums and still make money, the match going fan is nothing to these clubs now, "viewers" are all that matters.

They'll artificially pump crowd noises in for the players when everyone sacks off the live games for watching it on their VR Headsets.
In fairness that would be pretty great.
 
This would have made more sense to trial it with a cup competition. Guess it shows how desperate European leagues are to catch up with EPL.
 
Thinking about it, if the match day revenue means so little now, why can't they start showing 3pm kickoffs?

Because its the match day revenue of the lower leagues that is being protected.

As for the topic, rip football.
 
I don't see the PL doing it. Honestly. Just feel that the people who run our league, despite not being completely "100% for the fans", have some form of connection with us and won't do the match abroad shit.

Hahaha. Their only connection is with money.
 
Whatever happened to the premier league's plan for a 39th game played in the US/Asia? I'm sure there was a lot of talk about it a few years ago

Have they said then what would that mean anyway? 39th game? Some type of friendly, or team or two would gain points for League?