UEFA recognized Facebook as the exclusive venue to watch for free some of the matches in Latin America

Through a statement, UEFA explained that Facebook bought the rights to relay the Champions League’s matches in Latin America, until 2021, for a sum of 90 million euros.

Leer en español: El futuro de la Champions está en Facebook

"UEFA is pleased to announce the granting of certain broadcasting rights to Facebook in Latin America, which will make it the exclusive and free venue for certain live matches of the UEFA Champions League in the Spanish-speaking territories during the cycle 2018-21", explains the note.

In addition, Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA's Marketing Director, explained that he was "delighted" to welcome Facebook to his family of media partners because "as the largest social networking platform in the world, Facebook will guarantee broad free coverage of the most prestigious club competition in the world. We are very excited about the launch of this new alliance that will reach the great local community of soccer fans in a highly innovative and accessible way".

For his part, Peter Hutton, director of Live Sports Programming for Facebook, said they are "proud" to be "the exclusive and free venue of the UEFA Champions League matches throughout Latin America for the next three years".

"This world-renowned competition exemplifies how sports can connect communities, so we hope to help fans watch these matches live together and we are committed to working closely with our great UEFA partners to offer an experience of innovative viewing ", concluded Hutton.

The match that started this alliance was the end of the UEFA Super Cup, between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, which won by a difference of two goals to the renowned Spanish team. According to the Portafolio newspaper, the streaming of last Wednesday, August 15, had more than 210,000 visits.

Also read: Will Real Madrid be able to claim its fourth consecutive crown without Cristiano Ronaldo?  

According to the newspaper Kien y Ke, Facebook will have exclusive rights to free broadcast 32 live matches every season, including the final match and the UEFA Super Cup. The matches will be available on the official UEFA Champions League page on Facebook. According to La Nación, Turner and Facebook will select "the best game every Wednesday" to broadcast it in streaming.

A bigger plan

This is not the first time that Facebook makes this type of purchases: at the beginning of this week, it acquired the rights to broadcast live LaLiga matches during the next three seasons in eight countries of South Asia. According to the newspaper La Vanguardia, in 2017 an agreement was reached with Univisión for the broadcast of 22 matches of the North American Major League Soccer in the United States.

This type of alliance is part of the plan of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to consolidate the company as one of the next big platforms of live sports broadcasting and reach a wider market.

LatinAmerican Post | Luisa Fernanda Báez
Translated from “El futuro de la Champions está en Facebook”