The Olivedesportos agency has cancelled its deal to sell pay-television rights for the Taça da Liga, the Portuguese football league cup competition.
Olivedesportos told the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional, the country’s football league and the operator of the tournament, that it would curtail its four-year deal, from 2010-11 to 2013-14. Under the deal, Olivedesportos was also responsible for selling the competition’s title sponsorship rights.
The league was responsible for selling the competition’s free-to-air rights and struck a deal with commercial broadcaster TVI for the remainder of the 2012-13 season and the 2013-14 campaign on November 19, several weeks after the start of this season’s competition. The Publico website said that TVI agreed to pay an average of less than €50,000 ($65,000) per game in the new deal – about one-quarter of the rights fee paid by free-to-air broadcaster SIC in the previous cycle.
Olivedesportos said that the TVI deal had undervalued the competition in the marketplace, making it “impossible” for the agency to reach its target sales figures for the tournament’s pay-television rights.
The agency also said that the lateness of the TVI deal, with one-third of the tournament having already taken place, had meant that this season’s competition had missed out on the necessary exposure to generate adequate interest from sponsors.