E-commerce and media company Amazon has made its latest venture into original sports content by agreeing a deal that will make LaLiga, the top division of Spanish club football, the subject of its first Spanish Prime Original series.
In partnership with LaLiga and the Mediapro agency, the Six Dreams documentary series will follow six players and club officials throughout the 2017-18 season.
The participants include Atletico Madrid’s Saul Niguez (pictured), Athletic Bilbao’s Inaki Williams and Real Betis’ Andres Guardado. Ex-Sevilla head coach Eduardo Berizzo and Girona sports director Quiqué Carcel will also feature, alongside Amaia Gorostiza, the female president of Eibar. Berizzo was relieved of his duties in December following a poor run of form and was replaced by Italian Vincenzo Montella.
Mediapro president Jaume Roures said: “It is immensely significant that in their first project in Spain, Amazon Prime Video has chosen LaLiga and Mediapro as travel companions: quality content, on a growing global phenomenon and with the widest possible dissemination.”
A domestic tender for LaLiga’s media rights from the 2019-20 season is expected to be launched between March and May. Amazon has been linked to possible participation in the tender, but officials have downplayed any links between the documentary deal and its future intentions.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas said, according to the Variety website: “It’s one way of being nearer to Amazon. It wouldn’t be sensible to not be close to a company of its size.”
Roures added: “We already work with Amazon. There are no second intentions and, if you ask me, I don’t think anything will happen immediately on an Amazon bid for rights.”
Meanwhile, Tebas has responded to mounting criticism from Spanish telcos over the cost of football rights, stating that they don’t have to bid for rights if they feel they are too expensive.
Mediapro has said it will open a tender for domestic rights to the Uefa Champions League and Europa League this month, as Vodafone España last month became the latest telco to express its unease at the cost of agreeing carriage deals for club football in the country.
In July, a joint venture between Mediapro and pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports was confirmed as the exclusive rights-holder in Spain for the Champions League and Europa League. The rights will run for three seasons, from 2018-19 to 2020-21.
BeIN and Mediapro are the current holders of pay-television Champions League rights across the 2015-16 to 2017-18 seasons, with commercial broadcaster Atresmedia and Catalan public-service broadcaster TV3 holding free-to-air rights.
The new deal marks the first time that Champions League rights have been awarded solely to a pay-television platform. Vodafone España chief executive, Antonio Coimbra, said that he does not understand the “absurd” costs of acquiring football rights.
Earlier, Vodafone’s fellow telco Telefónica threatened to forgo renewing its contract with Mediapro to broadcast the Champions League, with chief operating officer Ángel Vilá criticising the “exuberance and excess” in the sports rights market.
Tebas said, according to Spanish news agency EFE: “If it seems expensive, then do not buy it, we will follow other strategies, other paths, we will anticipate strategies and we will do it, we will get as much or more, assuming more or less risk. If it is so expensive, I do not want to be a participant in the ruin of Telefónica.”