Liga F now knows where its matches will be shown. Ten days before the opening round, and only hours after the deadline closed, it awarded its audiovisual rights in Spain and Andorra for the next three seasons.
DAZN will show all eight matches from every round on its subscription platform. RTVE and 3Cat/TV3 will make four of those eight available free-to-air. That means 120 of the season’s 240 matches will be shown without a subscription.
The pay-TV rights have gone to the same platform that already held them for the coming season. Liga F took that season back without explaining how, put it on the market on 28 July and has now awarded it to DAZN again.
Four free-to-air matches: one fewer than in the closing stretch, 42 more across the season
The new award expands free-to-air coverage when compared over a full season.
During the first 18 rounds of 2025/26, one match per round was available free-to-air. On 30 January, Liga F announced that, from round 19 onwards, four matches would be shown by RTVE and 3Cat/TV3, alongside another match on GOL Play, TEN and regional broadcasters. The final twelve rounds therefore had five free-to-air matches each.
That produced 78 free-to-air matches over the whole season: 18 in the first 18 rounds and 60 in the final twelve. The new agreement guarantees four across all 30 rounds, or 120 in total.
That is 42 more over the course of the season, although it is one fewer per round than during the closing stretch of 2025/26.
The new tender does not include a fifth free-to-air match. Its two domestic packages consist of all eight matches behind a subscription and four of those same matches also available without one.
The selection order determines which matches are free
Because DAZN holds all eight matches, the packages do not divide the fixtures between separate platforms. They determine which of those matches will also be placed in the free-to-air window.
The tender rules give the pay-TV package the first, third, fifth and sixth selections from each round. The free-to-air package receives the second, fourth, seventh and eighth. Each rights holder must communicate its selections three or four weeks in advance.
Both packages are guaranteed one match per season between Barcelona and Real Madrid. DAZN will carry both league meetings because it holds every match, but the clause ensures that at least one of them will also be available free-to-air.
Liga F will continue to produce the television feed, using between four and six cameras and up to twelve for premium matches, and will bear the production costs. Rights holders are required to show every match included in their package live.
The shortest term allowed under the tender rules
The rules accepted offers covering three, four or five seasons and left the final choice exclusively to Liga F, taking into account its commercial strategy, financial interests and other criteria. It has chosen three seasons.
The available information does not establish whether longer offers were worth less, were rejected for other reasons or were never submitted.
The previous rights cycle ran for five seasons. This one will end after the 2028/29 campaign.
In 2022, the price was published on the day of the award
Liga F has not disclosed how much DAZN, RTVE and 3Cat/TV3 will pay. It has also not said how many operators submitted bids or whether the two public broadcasters made a joint offer.
Four years ago, it did publish the figure. The statement announcing the first audiovisual rights award on 5 September 2022 opened with the amount: €35 million over five seasons.
What is known this time is how much Liga F was asking for. When it opened the second round, the competition published its reserve prices: €5 million per season for the pay-TV package and €2 million for the free-to-air package. The European Union package had a separate reserve price of €800,000 per season.
No bid in the first round reached the applicable reserve price. The rules nevertheless allow Liga F to award a package to the best bidder even if the offer falls below that threshold. The competition has not said whether it needed to use that provision.
No international rights award
The packages covering the European Union and the rest of the world have not been awarded.
Liga F says it will negotiate directly on a market-by-market basis, attributing the change to the interest received during the process. It has not identified any operator or country and has not announced a deadline.
In 2022, international exploitation was included in DAZN’s contract: the €35 million agreement covered the exclusive global broadcast of the competition.
Liga F is now approaching the new season without having announced who will show its matches outside Spain and Andorra.
What remains unknown nine days before the first match
The specific channels remain unclear. The statement does not say whether RTVE’s matches will be shown on La 1, Teledeporte or RTVE Play, or whether 3Cat/TV3 will distribute them through TV3, Esport3 or the 3Cat platform. Nor does it explain how the four matches will be divided between the two public broadcasters.
The kick-off times have already been set. Liga F published them on 3 August, and the opening round begins on Saturday 29 August at 12:00. The competition therefore fixed the schedule sixteen days before announcing who would televise the matches.
Liga F has still not explained how it recovered a season that DAZN had already bought through 2026/27 or whether compensation was involved. It is the same unanswered question as in July, now with an additional twist: the pay-TV package returned to the market only to end up back with the platform that previously held it.
Liga F closes its announcement with an audience figure: 7.5 million cumulative viewers in 2025/26, 11.2% more than the previous season and 127% more than in its first campaign.
That is the figure supporting its strategy. It is not the figure that was missing.