Telefonica dial right numbers for Spanish TV deal

Spanish telecom giant Telefonica will pay 600 million euros ($669 million) for exclusive rights to screen Spain's top football matches next season, it said Friday.

The company and the football league on Friday signed "an agreement for the marketing of the exploitation of audiovisual content rights for the pay per soccer in the domestic market, for the 2015/16 season," Telefonica said in a statement in English.

"The 600 million-euro agreement... grants the exclusive exploitation rights" to Telefonica for the top two flights of Spanish football, including those of giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, as well as pay-per-view options for cup games.

It said the deal was "also beneficial for the rest of the operators, clubs and supporters".

La Liga last week estimated that selling the international television rights would bring in another 600 million euros per season.

That would boost the overall television revenues for the Spanish league from about 785 million euros in the 2013-2014 season to 1.2 billion euros overall for 2015-2016.

Friday's deal was struck under a new system of collective bidding that aims to boost revenues and help Spain's La Liga compete with the likes of the English Premier League.

The Premier League has sold its television rights to broadcasters BT and Sky Sports for the three seasons between 2016-19 for 6.9 billion euros.

In May players in Spain threatened to strike over the new bidding system to demand that a bigger share of broadcast revenue be channelled to smaller clubs. A court ruled against the stoppage.