Hope the SPFL suits are watching this, might be the way for Scotland to get decent money again.

Have the rights to La Liga been bought yet? If not, should BT be fighting Sky all the way for them.

No, but I believe BT have pulled out of the race for La Liga rights, so just between Sky, ITV and Channel 5.

I was hoping for more live games not just a new name. Oh well it's still good for grass roots footy. Well done BT.

So if that's the case it will be almost certainly retained by Sky.

Would love to see it go FTA but could you really see ITV or Channel 5 give it the exposure like Sky do?
Ok ITV could stick 90% of the games on ITV 4 which wouldn't effect their main Saturday nigh schedule for a start but 5 would have very little room for swapping and adjusting the schedules.

Any idea why BT pulled out? Was it because when their new Premier rights and the fact they have retained the Italian and German leagues?

I think it could be that as well. We shall have to wait and see. Suspect a weekly game.

ITV have the cash and need so I would not rule them out. C5 owners could want to use them on another channel, however suspect ITV will get them as they need them the most.

ITV4 may be interested in a highlights deal similar to their Bundesliga coverage. There is absolutely no way live La Liga rights would represent a sound investment for any FTA broadcaster though.

If BT really aren't competing then Sky will have this sewn up.

If ITV got the rights I think the only games on the main channel will be Barcelona v Real Madrid and Real Madrid v Athletico Madrid and Maybe the 11am games

Exactly, deal done!

I think everything would be on ITV4.

Why on earth not?
Sky currently pays £5m per year for 196 live games.
Assuming that games involving neither Real not Barcelona have no value, that works out as around £70,000 per game.

Games that do involve those teams get around 300,000 viewers on Sky.
On ITV4 they would get around 500,000. On Channel 5 they would get around 700,000

That means the cost per viewer is 14p for ITV4 or 10pm for Channel 5. Both numbers well below the 50p per viewer that is seen as the benchmark for whether FTA coverage is affordable.

It's still affordable even if the cost of the rights doubles.

Spanish football on itv 4 makes total sense for point raised above.

£5m pa an absolute steal. Real v barca would get over a million easy. Rest of games would rate high too.

Certainly when 2016-17 season kicks in I'd expect it to take over the Premier League slot at lunch-time or there abouts (ie 12:15-12:45) to fill a gap between the morning show (whether that be an innovated version of Fletch and Sav) and the rugby at 3.

Thanks for this.

It's worth putting that £5m figure in context - it's less than Sky and BT are paying for each live PL game - under the current (ie 2013/16) contract.

Will be interesting to see what happens - presumably Sky would be willing to pay a certain amount more to retain. In the context of their total sports rights spend it's a tiny amount of money for them - so if they do lose it they can't believe it would have any significant adverse effect.

Have to say looking at these figures why would BT really not be interested?
Like you say it would be peanuts for them considering what they have paid for some rights recently or could it just be a simple case it would not fit in with their Saturday Sunday night schedule with their current European action and eventually when their new 5.30 Saturday prem games comes in?

The price of any asset is what anyone is prepared to pay for it.

If, hypothetically, ITV ends up buying these rights for £10m per year then all we would be able to say is that neither Sky not BT thinks it is worth paying £10m per year for them.

Of course £10m is peanuts compared to what Sky/BT is paying for other rights. But that doesn't mean the rights are worth £10m to them. They will only pay what they think the rights are worth.

If the overall cost is that low I do have to wonder why BT are no longer interested.

All signs up to now pointed to otherwise - they were devoting more and more time to La Liga on the European Football Show for example - even if they can't show highlights there was discussion of the talking points from it. They also have their ambassador deal with Bale which they can't really make much use of without rights to the league.

It would also represent by far the most watched non-UK league if BT were to get the coverage, even ahead of the Bundesliga deal which they renewed, and I suspect they know that - so why they would renew Bundesliga and then make a decision to not pursue La Liga when the rights cost is so small, I don't know.

But how much are they paying for Bundesliga? Almost certainly far less than La Liga would cost.

We can only speculate but let's say it is going to take approx £10m to £12m to win the La Liga rights this time. They may well only be paying about £2m to £3m for Bundesliga.

I think the reality is that whilst these rights generate a lot of interest on here they are hardly going to change anyone's decision whether to subscribe to Sky or BT. So they just aren't worth much in comparison to the highest profile stuff.

Look at this way - BT is only paying £25m for its FA Cup rights. So I see no reason to assume they would value La Liga higher than, say, £10m.

Just reading the Eurosport comms thread someone mentioned there that they had been taken over by Discovery Channel, which of course has happened since last summer and some even thought they might be a dark hose bidder for the PL rights.

Anyway I wonder if they might be interested in picking up the rights or at least competing with Sky. Not only do they have the Eurosport channels they also have Quest which they used to show the Schalke tournament on in the summer in which West Ham particpated.

This would obviously be a UK-based contract not Pan-Europe in the same way that Germany shows games from Poland or the Nordics and Netherlands show Bundesliga.

ITV will win these rights if they want them. As people have said they are cheap and ITV needs more football and is meant to be meant to be serious about developing ITV4 - this I can imagine is their plan.

I suspect ITV will get them and ITV4 will screen all the games, good for the advertisers and probably cheap football to keep the casual happy.

Just completed another online survey from Sky asking me all kinds of things - how likely I am to be subscribing to their services in 12 months, how likely I am to be subscribing to other suppliers' services, how much or little I like to watch the sports they show, how I regard their coverage of football and other sports in relation to other broadcasters etc.

They also asked a few questions about the CL, namely who I thought was broadcasting it this season and next, how likely I was to subscribe to BT Sport given their showing of it from next season, whether I would do so by getting it free with their broadband or paying monthly through Sky - and whether I would be less likely to subscribe to them if they levied a charge of £3 per month to watch the CL.

You can draw your own conclusions as to how accurate an estimate that's likely to be.

Does anybody watch PL coverage through the BT Sports app? If sois it any good? Thinking of moving my sim only mobile to BT as you get the app as part of the deal. Thanks in advance for any replies.

From what I've seen of the app (used via WiFi) it's pretty good, and more or less SDTV-quality.

Thanks.