Coverage of live Spanish La Liga football will be available on free-to-air television in Thailand next season after the country’s La Liga rights-holder, pay-television operator RS, agreed sublicensing deals with commercial broadcasters Channel 7 and Channel 8.
RS has sold rights to the two broadcasters in a one-year deal for the 2012-13 season, the Bangkok Post reported. Channel 8 will show one live La Liga match per week and Channel 7 will broadcast live 12 matches per season.
RS also did a deal for 12 live games with Total Access Communication, the operator of mobile phone network DTAC.
RS holds the rights for Spanish football in Thailand for three seasons starting in 2012-13. The newspaper reported that RS paid 1 billion baht (€25 million/$33 million) for the rights, although TV Sports Markets understands that the company paid far less for the property.
In August, RS will launch a pay-television channel dedicated to the league – RS Sport La Liga. The new pay-television channel will broadcast all 380 games, with subscriptions costing 100 baht per month. The company is targeting 200,000 subscribers for next season and 800,000 by the end of the 2015.
Pornpan Techarungchaikul, chief operating officer of RS, said that the company expected revenue of more than two billion baht from broadcasting Liga matches over the three-year period. She said: “We’re confident we can increase the fan base for La Liga. Our subscription fee is very low.”