Domestic La Liga rights loss hits Mediapro

Media rights agency Mediapro has reported 2019 revenue decreases of €150 million, and a fall in turnover from €1.97 billion in 2018 to €1.82 billion.

The agency attributed the majority of its losses to the end of its domestic rights contract with La Liga. In 2018, Telefónica outbid Mediapro for the majority of the domestic La Liga rights through to the end of 2021/22 in a bid believed to be worth €3.3 billion.

Mediapro secured the rights to La Liga distribution for public venues and will sell its international rights through to 2023/24.

Despite its losses, Mediapro saw a modest increase in EBITDA of €2 million from €222 million to €224 million. Mediapro also said that it had invested €80 million in consolidating its international expansion.

Overall, Mediapro ended 2019 with €727 million in debts.

While it lost out on domestic La Liga in 2018, Mediapro has amassed a large library of sports rights. These include a 260 games per season deal for the Uefa Europa League and Uefa Europa Conference in Spain, the global media rights to the Canadian Premier League, and Spanish rights to the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.

It notably lost out on the Champions League in France to a joint bid from BeIN Sports and Canal+.

Mediapro also noted the success of The Mediapro Studio in 2019 – its production house which has co-produced content with the likes of Amazon Prime Video, HBO and Netflix. In 2019 it launched 37 productions in Spain, Italy, Finland, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile. The Mediapro Studio also saw over 10,501 hours  of its content broadcast in Spain, with accumulated viewers of more than 43 million.