Spain's Telefonica loses most rights to show La Liga football

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Telefonica on Wednesday lost the bulk of television rights to screen Spanish football matches for the next three seasons, undermining its strategy to capture pay-TV viewers through premium content.

(Reuters)

Spain's La Liga football league said on Wednesday it had awarded packages of television rights to screen first division, second division and King's Cup matches to Spanish media group Mediapro for 1.9 billion euros (£1.35 billion).

Telefonica unit DTS won rights to screen a smaller package of games from these leagues for 750 million euros.

Telefonica is banking on boosting its Movistar+ pay-TV service by offering premium content like football matches.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Writing by Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Tom Heneghan)