LaLigaSportsTV agrees deal with Samsung for Android TV carriage

LaLiga, the governing body for the top-two divisions of Spanish football, has agreed a deal with tech firm Samsung to carry the LaLigaSportsTV OTT platform.

LaLigaSportsTV will now be available on Samsung’s AndroidTV which is the operating system for all the tech firm’s Smart TVs.

The OTT will be free to use on the television sets globally and will give access to more than 30 sports including matches from the ASOBAL Handball league and Spain’s second-tier basketball division Liga LEB Oro, plus sports such as badminton, pétanque and weightlifting.

LaLigaSportsTV doubled its number of registered users between late September and mid-January, growing from 300,000 to 600,000 in those four months.

Javier Tebas said that €7.5m ($8m) had been invested in the platform as of last September, comprised of €4m for content acquisition and €3.5m for IT infrastructure.

The platform currently also streams second-division Spanish football, but Tebas told SportBusiness Media that it was unlikely top-tier matches would be streamed through the platform when the next rights cycle commences in 2022-23.