Spain's national football team "remains the star that all broadcasters want to sign," according to Raúl Piña of EL MUNDO. UEFA is selling rights for 20 of Spain's Euro 2016 and 2018 World Cup qualifying matches. Three Spanish broadcasters -- Mediaset's Telecinco, Atresmedia and public broadcaster TVE -- "have presented offers," with sources "close to the negotiations" explaining that public broadcaster TVE is willing to pay €50M ($68.9M) for the rights. The figure, however, "has not been officially confirmed." UEFA rights holder CAA Eleven is negotiating "the sale of the Spanish team's qualifying matches with the Spanish channels." Sources indicated that "the offers from Telecinco and Antena 3 are far from what TVE offered." A source said, "TVE's figure completely breaks the market. A price that distorts the supply and demand and is also a lost fund, as TVE will not recover anything from the investment because it does not air advertising." TVE "declined to comment but confirmed that there is no final agreement" (EL MUNDO, 3/26). LIBERTAD DIGITAL reported that the two private broadcasters -- Mediaset and Atresmedia -- are each offering around €30M ($41.3M). The news of TVE's offer "comes hours after it was revealed" that it lost €113M in '13. The public broadcaster's $68.9M offer would break article 47.3 of Spain's Audiovisual Law, which states that "lenders of public communication services are not allowed to undervalue the prices of their services or use public funds to overbid private competitors for broadcast rights." TVE's reported offer would also break "article 3 of TVE's Financing Law, which establishes that the corporation cannot use its revenue to overvalue content rights of great commercial value." This law "means that the broadcaster can dedicate only 10% of its budget to the acquisition of sports rights." If TVE wins the rights to Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup, it will spend up to €90M ($124M) per year on sports rights, as it currently pays €35M ($48M) per year on Champions League rights (LIBERTAD DIGITAL, 3/26).
