La Liga has announced on Tuesday that social media Facebook has bought the landmark rights, which means viewers in the sub-continent can watch every game over the next three seasons free of charge.

La Liga will be streamed live on Facebook for the next three seasons.

There were some tension around the sub-continent when Sony announced they failed to buy the rights of La Liga. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Facebook will stream all 380 La Liga matches this season.

The viewers who will be able to watch are India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Alfredo Bermejo, La Liga’s head of digital strategy released a statement on Tuesday:
“We are really happy to be on a free to air service in such an important territory as the Indian sub-continent. One of our goals for the last two years has been to offer content to the widest audience possible, so partnering with free platforms like Facebook, which has 270 million users in India, is key to us.”

Facebook and La Liga declined to give the price of the deal. And as a result Sony Pictures Network lost their rights in this region. Sony paid a reported $32 million to broadcast La Liga between 2014 and 2018.

Peter Hutton, Facebook’s Director of Global Live Sports explained the deal with La Liga is an experiment.

“Were looking at a few other deals that are quite close to completion but this is not about going out and buying a huge amount of content worldwide. We’re looking at specific rights in specific markets and to try to learn from data from those experiences and work out what the next step is. If you rush into too many deals at once, you can’t do it properly.”

La Liga 2018-19 campaign will kick-off on 18th August.