Telefónica Pays DAZN €1.65B to Keep Every LaLiga Match on Movistar Through 2032

Telefónica has agreed to pay DAZN €1.65 billion over five seasons to keep distributing the full LaLiga schedule on its Movistar Plus+ platform, extending a sublicensing relationship between the two companies that dates back to 2022 and pushing the annual fee to €330 million — an 18% jump from the €280 million the Spanish telecom giant was paying under the current contract.

The new non-exclusive agreement, disclosed to Spain's stock market regulator CNMV, runs from the 2027-28 season through 2031-32. Under its terms, Telefónica will distribute a DAZN-controlled package of five LaLiga EA Sports matches across all 38 rounds of the season to residential pay-TV subscribers in Spain — up from a five-match, 35-round slice under the outgoing deal.

Crucially, this sublicensing pact is layered on top of rights Telefónica already secured directly from LaLiga last June. Combined, the two agreements mean Movistar Plus+ subscribers will continue to get every single LaLiga match, with Telefónica and DAZN each controlling 190 matches per season in the 2027-2032 residential rights cycle.

The bigger number sits underneath the deal: LaLiga's domestic audiovisual rights for the five-year cycle beginning in 2027-28 were valued at €6.13 billion in total, a 9% increase on the previous cycle, with residential First Division rights alone accounting for €5.25 billion of that figure, according to reporting from Advanced Television and Sportcal.

That growth matters because it runs counter to a narrative that's taken hold across European football broadcasting — that live rights values are flattening or even shrinking as linear pay-TV subscriber bases erode and streaming economics get squeezed. LaLiga's ability to push value up nearly 10% suggests appetite for top-tier Spanish football, powered by Real Madrid and Barcelona, remains resilient among distributors.

For Telefónica, the calculus is straightforward: live football remains the single strongest driver of Movistar Plus+ subscriptions and churn reduction in the Spanish market, and the telecom is willing to pay up rather than risk losing any part of the LaLiga match inventory to a rival distributor. The company already holds Spanish rights to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League through 2031, reinforcing football as the backbone of its premium content strategy.

For DAZN, the deal is a meaningful, multi-year revenue anchor at a moment when the streamer has been aggressively restructuring its European football rights portfolio — including a separate, closely watched arrangement covering LaLiga in Italy and Portugal. Locking in a guaranteed €330 million a year from a single distribution partner de-risks DAZN's own investment in LaLiga's underlying rights.

The renewal also signals how the sublicensing model — where a rights holder like DAZN buys direct from the league and then re-sells slices of that inventory to telcos and pay-TV operators — continues to be the dominant commercial structure in Spanish football, rather than a clean shift to direct-to-consumer streaming exclusivity that some had expected the industry to move toward.

With the deal now locked in through the 2031-32 season, both companies have removed a major renewal risk from their forward business planning, giving LaLiga five years of pricing visibility from two of its most important domestic partners heading into a period where the league is also pushing international growth and season-opening matches abroad.