La Liga has signed a "landmark deal with Facebook which will allow viewers in the Indian sub-continent to watch every game over the next three seasons for free on the social network," according to Richard Martin of REUTERS. La Liga in a statement said that all 380 league matches for the new season, which begins on Friday, "would be available to viewers in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan." Facebook and La Liga "declined to give financial details of the deal which sees the social network giant unseat Sony Pictures Network as the rights holder in the region." Sony paid a reported $32M for the "right to broadcast La Liga" between '14-18. Facebook Dir of Global Live Sports Peter Hutton "described the deal with La Liga as an experiment." Hutton said that while the company has other agreements in the works, he "ruled out an immediate land grab of rights deals in sport." Hutton: "We're looking at a few other deals that are quite close to completion but this is not about going out and buying a huge amount of content worldwide." Facebook’s monitoring system will "prevent against leakage, ensuring only viewers inside the Indian sub-continent will be able to watch the games on its platform." The games will "initially be shown" without any advertisements. However, Hutton said that Facebook is doing "trials in advertising on live content in the United States which may be replicated on its La Liga coverage at a later date" (REUTERS, 8/13). DAWN.com's Umair Javed tweeted this deal "should expand" La Liga's following in Pakistan, and "might even chip away at the Premier League's dominance among local fans." U.K.-based media consultant Simon Chadwick: "May seem inconsequential to some, but involves big numbers e.g. 270m Facebook users in India alone" (TWITTER.com, 8/13).
