The F League is devalued at times
The lack of offers to buy the television rights are the umpteenth setback for a competition that in the last year has stagnated
BarcelonaThe firm commitment to women's football in Spain is one of the great challenges in the coming years. The World Cup won by the Spanish team in 2023 seemed like it would boost women's sport, but over the years it has all remained a utopia. Attendance at stadiums was the first wake-up call, with a drop of almost 20% in the last season. Now, television rights —which could not be awarded in the first round due to a lack of offers— have once again highlighted the problems the competition is facing.
La Liga F will continue to be broadcast on DAZN, 3Cat, and RTVE for the next three seasons. Or, at least, this is the agreement reached on Wednesday. Although DAZN had acquired the competition rights in 2022 for 35 million euros and a five-season contract – which ended in 2027 –, on July 28 of this year the process to re-commercialize them began.
The organization presented two packages for Spanish territory and two more for the European Union and the rest of the world. The initially set price was five million euros to offer the full matchday through a pay channel and two million euros for the broadcast of four matches in open access. In the case of rights outside of Spain, La Liga requested 800,000 euros to broadcast the eight matches throughout the European Union, and also offered the possibility of marketing them independently in each country.
But there is a big step from will to reality. The institution found that no television reached the requested amounts and opened a second round, which closed last Wednesday with the awarding of the rights to DAZN —the full pay matchday— and RTVE and 3Cat —four open access duels— for a figure lower than requested, but which has not been made public. The international package has not been awarded and will be marketed independently in each country. Money that will also end up reaching the clubs.
How are the rights distributed?
All of this will cause a decrease in the income that the sixteen participating teams in the F League will receive. The latest data confirmed by the organization – corresponding to the 2024-25 season – indicate that the Barça coffers received around €500,000 for this concept. In contrast, Badalona Women and Espanyol received close to €250,000.
The criteria for distributing television rights – which will have to be reviewed in the current season – are divided into a fixed part equal for all clubs, 50% of the total, and a variable part based on final league position in the last three seasons (25%) and according to the accumulated audiences each club generates (25%). Barça, for being league champions, has obtained 10% of the total revenue corresponding to the variable part for classification.
Although clubs will receive less money for audiovisual rights, the Barcelona entity is not conveying any concern. According to what ARA has learned, Barça believes it will not have a very significant impact, as they will be able to compensate for it through other avenues such as sponsors or business opportunities. Where it can affect is in the positioning, visibility, and reputation of the League at a time of international projection. The other two Catalan clubs in the First Division, Espanyol and Badalona Women, have not wanted to make any assessment of the agreement.
Meanwhile, in England, this summer the Women's Super League (WSL) has signed a historic agreement with CBS Sports to market the English league in the United States for the next four seasons, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian. In addition, last season, Sky Sports and the BBC acquired the rights to the WSL in England for 65 million pounds (about 75 million euros) for the next five seasons, according to the same outlet.
The F League continues to grow
Stadium attendance is also one of the symptoms that show the stagnation of the F League. Between the 2023-24 season – the first after the World Cup won by Spain and the second year after the professionalization of the First Women's Division and the conversion into F League – and the 2024-25 course, stadium attendance increased by 7%, bringing it to close to 400,000 accumulated spectators (an average of 1,650).
These figures, however, plummeted last season, where stadiums gathered 324,250 spectators, an average of 1,351, according to various media outlets. The data would be even worse without Barça, which sustains a large part of the product. The Blaugranas were responsible for practically half of all the league's attendance, with an average of 6,102 spectators in each match (3,947 if the match played at Montjuïc against Real Madrid is not taken into account).
The same has happened with television viewership, which went from 3.3 million accumulated viewers in the 2022-23 season to 6.7 million in the 2024-25 season. This represents an increase of 103% — particularly significant between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 years, when viewership rose by 90% —. However, this year it has stagnated with 7.5 million accumulated viewers, meaning it has only increased by 11.2%. Despite this, the Madrid-Barça match in March became the most-watched game in the League with an average viewership of 685,335 viewers and 2,090,354 unique users.