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Sports Viewing Is Set For A Radical Shakeup

Newsflash the internets not going away and get used to watching live sport on the web. Hot on the...



Sports Viewing Is Set For A Ra...
Other Sports

Sports Viewing Is Set For A Radical Shakeup

Newsflash the internets not going away and get used to watching live sport on the web.

Hot on the heels of the US PGA championship being made available on the web only comes more news that is concerning tv bosses.

People in the Indian subcontinent will, from this week, have only one way to watch top flight Spanish football: on Facebook.

The social network has signed an exclusive deal to show every La Liga game, for the next three seasons, to viewers in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, The Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

The rights were previously held by Sony Pictures Network. The terms of the new deal have not been disclosed.

The last time they were for sale, in 2014, they were bought for $32m, according to Reuters. There are 348m Facebook users in the region, 270m of them are in India. It is the latest move from Facebook, and the tech industry in general, to invest in highly lucrative sports rights for emerging streaming services.

The social network already shows Major League Baseball to US audiences at a reported cost of $1m per game. As with the rest of Facebook, the content is free but supported by targeted advertising.

In this part of the world, the current Premier League season will be the last time every live match will be shown on a TV channel.

Next season, 20 games will be online-only - viewable only through Amazon. The company will bundle the games in with its Prime subscription service.

Which is all very fine unless you live in one of Irelands broadband blackspots but dont get us started on that!

It looks like sports fans are set to be another sector of society by the failure to have a proper technical infrastructure here.

Boo Hoo!

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