On April 14th, Spain’s top flight football league La Liga announced that it had awarded its production contracts to HBS (Host Broadcast Services) and TSA (Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales) – ending a decades-long production partnership with Mediapro.

Mediapro, the Spanish multimedia group, has now issued a heated respond to La Liga’s “unprecedented” decision, claiming that it had tabled a superior bid that “exceeded the requirements outlined in the tender”. Mediapro also said that it believes the change in AV operators will harm the football clubs and the league both financially and in terms of broadcast quality.

The response in full:

“In view of LALIGA’s surprising decision to exclude [Mediapro] from all the awards of the production and distribution contracts of the Spanish national football championship, [Mediapro] wishes to issue the following statement.

1. [Mediapro]’s economic and technical proposal for the tender organized by LALIGA was the most competitive among all submissions. Financially, it represented the lowest cost for both LALIGA and its clubs, while technically, it significantly exceeded the requirements outlined in the tender. It is unprecedented that LALIGA has in-stead awarded the contract to a more expensive bidder — a Swiss based supplier with no technical infrastructure in Spain and no prior experience in producing a full-season football competition of this scale.

Furthermore, the entire tender process has been marked by a lack of transparency, with shifting deadlines and repeated delays, none of which were explained to [Mediapro].

3. In its official statement, LALIGA exaggerates the merits of the successful bidders, even going as far as to disseminate demonstrably false information regarding their credentials and erroneously attributes to them the production of the UEFA Champions League, the European Championship, and the Africa Cup — events that have, in fact, been produced mostly by [Mediapro].

4. Nor do the successful bidders have technical equipment nor human resources in Spain, nor a production HUB, as stipulated as a requirement in the rules of the tender issued by LALIGA. In fact, the company awarded the contract does not possess these resources anywhere in the world, since they operate as consultants and executive producers, and as such, outsource the necessary technical means, often those of [Mediapro], which in the end was in charge of television production.

5. On the contrary, [Mediapro] is the most reputable and internationally recognised football audiovisual production partner, currently producing 13 top-tier national football leagues around the world and with the capacity to produce 9,000 football matches per season and more than 25,000 live sporting events during 2024, the majority of which was performed using the company’s own resources and broadcast professionals.

6. With its 105 Outside Broadcast Units worldwide and more than 4,200 broadcast pro-fessionals in Spain alone, [Mediapro] regularly provides production services to many world-renowned competitions such as UEFA, FIFA, COMNEMOL, CONCACAF and CAF, having produced 6 of the last 10 UEFA finals.

7. Over the years that [Mediapro] has provided technical production services, LALIGA has earned a reputation as the most innovative and technologically advanced football competition. It is therefore paradoxical that the technical expertise, reliability, and talent of [Mediapro]’s professionals are more widely recognised internationally than by the Spanish Liga itself. Even more striking is the irony of those who claim to champion the Spanish industry choosing to award the contract to a Swiss company, despite a Spanish company being a global leader in live football production.

8. Thanks to [Mediapro], LALIGA has been a pioneer in adopting innovative tech-nologies such as remote production, AI-generated highlights, augmented reality graphics, and virtual stands and sound during the pandemic. [Mediapro] also led the first-ever live use of cinematic cameras in broadcasts — a practice later adopt-ed by major international competitions. Moreover, LALIGA itself recently acknowledged [Mediapro]’s invaluable contribution to the fight against piracy, even re-questing that [Mediapro] train technicians from other platforms to implement the highly effective anti-piracy tools it developed — training which [Mediapro] provided entirely free of charge.

9. [Mediapro] believes the unfounded change of audiovisual operator, which, if carried out with such urgency, could jeopardise the production of early-season matches. This change will undoubtedly harm the clubs and the competition both financially and in terms of broadcast quality.

10. [Mediapro] will defend its reputation, and that of all its professionals, and will review any potential appeal of the decision.”

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Categories: Articles, Content, Production

Tags: la liga, Mediapro, production, telefonica