By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
As sportcal.com published in an article by the title “Furious ACB hits back at Euroleague in War of Words over Spanish League’s “cut price” TV rights deal” (which… pretty much says everything), TVE (“the cash-strapped-public-service broadcaster”) will pay nothing for the rights to a weekly league game, but will contribute 500.000 euros, per season, for the rights to Copa del Rey, which is held each February. The broadcaster was paying 5.8 million euros per season, for league and cup rights, in its previous three-year deal.
Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu said to Spanish sports newspaper “AS” that “giving the rights away for free means bread today, hunger tomorrow” and that this deal damages Euroleague, as it has distorted the market and made it difficult to sell a premium rights package, namely the European games of top Spanish club, Real Madrid, which were previously shown by TVE. He added “obviously, Spanish broadcasters want the same kind of deal for Euroleague, but for us that’s not an option”.
Sportcal.com writes that after enduring several weeks of criticism, the ACB has fired back with a five-point statement, in which it argued that Bertomeu’s opinion seem to be “a manoeuvre to justify Euroleague’s failure to seal a media rights deal in Spain, he disparages the television rights deal reached by the ACB and therefore the unanimous decision adopted by the clubs’s General Assembly- something the ACB cannot and will not tolerate. We want to remind you ACB is a professional competition that has managed to boost interest in the sport in its three decades of existence, while being among other things, a leader in professional sport and contributing very actively to the existence of Euroleague itself”.
Sportcal.com also noted that “earlier this year, TVE which has had to contend with significant budget cuts in the difficult economic climate in Spain, suggested that it would not be bidding to renew its rights deal for the ACB”. At the time, Bertomeu told to Sportcal that this showed that the TVE regarded Euroleague “as the premium product” and was hopeful that the broadcaster would extend its deal for the European competition, if not at the previous rate of 2.3 million euros per season. However TVE subsequently signed the cut-price deal with the ACB and its offer to continue Euroleague coverage was regarded as insufficient.
Real Madrid is the only club playing in this season’s Euroleague not to have secured a mainstream television deal. Its first game was shown on an ad-hoc basis by Marca TV, the free-to-air niche sports channel, and the last two have been broadcast by Real Madrid TV, a premium channel with limited distribution, an arrangement that will continue for the home game against Italy’s Mapooro Cantu.
Euroleague has tied up deals for the other three Spanish teams, with Catalan regional public-service broadcaster TVC showing the games of Barcelona Regal, Basque counterpart ETB those of Caja Laboral and Marca TV those of Unicaja Malaga.
Euroleague has been talking to other broadcasters, including Telecinco, owned by Italian media group Mediaset, but it has to accept that, in many cases, spending on sports rights in Spain is declining in line with advertising revenues in the economic downturn.
UPDATE: After the post was published we got the following reaction from ACB Communication Office: “With the new deal ACB left Teledeporte (1% share) and is now live on La1 of TVE (12% share). Also the new agreement with TVE allows ACB to make bigger marketing and sponsors exploitation and its revenues are growing (and will grow more) on that. So, even if the price of the TV rights is way lower than the previous contract, the new contract is much better than that of last season”.