It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine why users of the digital offering of the American sports channel ESPN+ are particularly interested in Spanish football. Top of the list: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid match from 2016. Next up: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid from 2020. Third place: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid from 2014.
Outside of Spain, the duel between the two clubs is obviously the primary attraction. The absolute classic, as it was called before the American television broadcaster took over the rights to La Liga for a whopping $1.4 billion a year ago. A rivalry with historical and political roots that is easy to market. Called: “El Clásico”.
“Ramón Mendoza, the former president of Real Madrid, saw a myth in all of this. A story that both teams are very comfortable with,” said the English football journalist and author Sid Lowe a few years ago in a documentary in the Derby Days series. “The rivalry helped them create a narrative. A story that eclipses the rest of Spain and the league.”
A shadow that also seemed so dark because the league did not have collective television contracts with foreign providers, but left it to individual clubs to make their own arrangements. A result of the change of heart a few years ago was the collaboration with the Relevent Sports Group in New York, the inventor of lucrative summer show tournaments such as the International Champions Cup. The contract with ESPN followed in 2021. Running for eight years and, according to La Liga Managing Director Javier Tebas, a platform to develop into the international number one and overtake the frontrunner in the marketing business, the English Premier League.
A project that can only work, however, if you prevent a split, as the spiritual fathers of the Super League have in mind. It seemed to have shipwrecked last year due to massive protests, mainly from England. Tebas sounded confident when he said at a press conference: “I think the danger has been averted for a long time.”
Deal with the world’s largest investment capital giant
Just a few weeks later, he admitted that the Super League concept was probably not dead after all. But he and his cronies have apparently found a way to throw the spanner in the works: a deal with one of the world’s biggest private equity giants – CVC Capital Partners, which has been looking for returns in football for some time.
Investor involvement in club football is not new. New is the entry on the next higher level – a whole league. The Italian Serie A and the German Football League rejected such offers. La Liga officials saw a chance in the defensive struggle against Madrid and Barcelona. The €2 billion cash injection, which will see CVC take over 8.2 per cent of the league’s assets, gives smaller clubs the opportunity to invest in modernizing their stadiums. It helps with the orientation towards stronger, worldwide marketing. And she is driving the top clubs into a corner, who do not want to give up the idea of an exclusive European Super League.
Tebas has a clear picture of the dispute, as he reiterated at a London Financial Times conference last month. “They say they don’t compete against the national leagues. I feel insulted and humiliated. The problem is not the competition itself, but who is in charge in the world of football. Real Madrid’s Florentine Perez has already said: They want to rule. But the other clubs shouldn’t worry, they would leave what’s left to us.”
Madrid and Barcelona are against the investment
Madrid and FC Barcelona opposed the investment but lost by an overwhelming majority in December’s intra-league vote. Now they continue to fight in court. Supported by the Spanish Football Federation since February. The giant investment company is only exploiting the current economic problems of the clubs, which lost 733 million euros last season due to the Covid crisis, officials say. Particularly disreputable: the term of the contract of 50 years.
But is that really the main reason for the fierce resistance? Connoisseurs of the matter like Sid Lowe, whose book about the rivalry between Real and Barca – title: “Fear and Loathing in La Liga”, has long been a classic itself, are not so sure. He surmised a few months ago on ESPN television: “Sports lawyers who know their stuff basically all come to the same conclusion. Somewhere in this agreement there has to be some kind of commitment not to split off or create a European super league. ”
Hardly any use for women’s football
Any details on this aspect have not yet leaked to the public. What seems clear, however, is that the investment does absolutely nothing for women’s football in Spain. Or more precisely: only 4.5 million euros. A drop on a hot stone. And that despite the fact that Barcelona has one of the most successful teams at the moment, which has already brought 60,000 spectators to the stadium and, with Alexia Putellas, has the world footballer of the year 2021 in its ranks.