La Liga TV launches in UK

Spanish football channel La Liga TV has launched in the UK.

The channel is available to Sky TV subscribers and claims to be the UK’s first dedicated channel showing all live content from a top football league.

The channel is being offered with an initial two-week free trial period through January 28. This will cover two full matchday, with every match being watchable. After that trial, the channel will be available as a standalone HD channel at £5.99 per month or as a part of the Premier Sports bundle, which also includes Premier Sports 1 and Premier Sports 2, for £11.99 per month.

This is the latest effort to get Spanish football’s top tier on British screens following a tumultuous 18 months.

The league signed a deal with OTT platform Eleven Sports for the 2018/19 season, but that was effectively abandoned after the service failed to attract enough subscribers by December. The rights were then quickly renegotiated, with Premier Sports and ITV handed the rights temporarily to cover the remainder of the season.

For the start of the 2019/20 season, ITV showed live coverage of three matchdays before the league signed a three-year deal with Premier Sports.

When announcing its deal with Premier Sports, La Liga president Javier Tebas said that this would be a “long-term partnership,” while the broadcaster’s CEO Richard Sweeney said that the deal “signals the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Spanish football in the UK.”