The Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal, which operates top-tier Romanian football league Liga I, has confirmed a new domestic media-rights agreement with Romanian digital agency EAD, from 2019-20.
The league’s new five-season deal was first reported by SportBusiness Media last year. EAD will sell on rights in Romania to commercial broadcaster Look TV, telco Telekom Romania and pay-television broadcaster Digi Sport.
The new deal will see a continuation of the sharing model first introduced by Maltese company Intel Sky Broadcasting, the rights-holder in the 2014-15 to 2018-19 cycle. Matches are split by picks each match-week, with Digi Sport getting first pick, Telekom Romania second pick, and Look TV third pick. High-profile matches can be broadcast simultaneously by all three broadcasters.
ISB was the owner of Look TV when it acquired the rights in the current cycle but sold the broadcaster – and the rights – to Romanian cable company Clever Media Network in October 2017. Clever Media Network is 96.7-per-cent owned by Adrian Tomșa, who – according to Romanian online publication Fanatik.Ro – was key in negotiations between the LPF and EAD.