GolTV & ESPN team Up on coverage of La Liga.

GolTV which holds exclusive TV rights to Spain’s La Liga and ESPN have reached an agreement  for Spanish and English-language multimedia rights to Spain’s La Liga in the U.S. through 2012.  The two multimedia companies will now share coverage of one of the world’s most popular and most watched football leagues — Spain’s La Liga.

With this deal, GolTV and ESPN will give La Liga fans in the U.S. the ability to see an unprecedented number of games.  Under the terms of the agreement, in addition to the 120 live games in English and Spanish that will be televised on GolTV, ESPN Deportes will provide exclusive Spanish-language coverage of more than 95 La Liga regular-season matches live.  ESPN360.com – ESPN’s live sports broadband network – will stream at least 114 matches, including simulcast of all 95 ESPN Deportes matches live in English.  ESPN2 will televise select matches and ESPN Mobile TV (on FLO TV and MobiTV) will also stream select games live to mobile devices.  Additional coverage will include a highlights show on match days on ESPN Deportes, as well as re-air rights across ESPN Deportes and ESPN360.com. 

ESPN Deportes and ESPN360.com will also have rights to Copa del Rey, Spain’s domestic cup tournament.

ESPNdeportes.com will deliver complete coverage including highlights and news video,  original reporting, columns, match previews, player profiles and real-time scores and data. 

“There is so much La Liga, and so much demand, we felt that for our fans and video distribution partners, the right answer was not to launch yet another exclusive channel, but to extend our programming rights across multiple networks – and there is no better partner for this endeavor than ESPN,” said Rodrigo Lombello, COO, GolTV.   “No other European football league can match La Liga in attracting large audiences on Spanish-language television.”   
 
“La Liga is arguably the most prestigious European soccer league in the world,” said Lino Garcia, general manager, ESPN Deportes.  “We’re thrilled to work with GolTV to showcase La Liga on ESPN for the first time to soccer fans in the U.S.  With the pending addition of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka, the timing is great to include this great property to the ESPN Deportes line-up, as it is the most exciting soccer league in the world today. “

“La Liga features the biggest soccer stars in the world and its non-stop action is unmatched. These teams, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, deliver GolTV’s highest-rated games, and now by partnering with ESPN we will now serve all La Liga fans wherever they are, and on whatever channel they prefer to watch the game,” said Enzo Francescoli, founder and CEO of GolTV.  “Because fans come first, we knew that making more of La Liga available across ESPN’s premiere multimedia platforms makes everyone a winner in this game. We couldn’t be more pleased to have this new relationship with ESPN.”