DAZN Secures Three-Season LALIGA Rights Across Sub-Saharan Africa
Image cover by LaLiga
DAZN has struck a three-season rights deal with LALIGA to broadcast every match of the EA SPORTS-sponsored Spanish top flight live and on-demand across Sub-Saharan Africa, starting last weekend and running through the end of the 2028/29 campaign.
The agreement covers 48 markets across the region, giving subscribers access to all 380 matches a season in English and Spanish, alongside highlights, archive footage and weekly original programming. It extends a DAZN-LALIGA partnership that already covers Spain, Italy, Japan, Germany, France and Portugal, and locks in DAZN's distribution of LALIGA content through the 2028/29 season across those markets too.
"LALIGA is home to some of the biggest clubs, players and rivalries in world football, and we are delighted to expand our longstanding partnership by bringing every match to fans across Sub-Saharan Africa over the next three seasons," said Shay Segev, CEO of DAZN Group.
Continuous Push Into Africa
The launch builds on a continuous push into African markets. Earlier this year DAZN brought FIFA+ onto its platform exclusively, adding sub-confederation competitions and content from more than 30 African member association leagues to a football catalogue that already spans domestic leagues, international competitions and national team football.
Crucially, the deal is not exclusive. LALIGA's rights in Sub-Saharan Africa are already split across multiple broadcasters: SuperSport carries the league on pay television, while StarTimes and Tanzania's Azam Media hold their own non-exclusive English-language rights in the region. DAZN's arrival adds a direct-to-consumer streaming option on top of that existing broadcast and pay-TV footprint.
LaLiga’s in Sub-Saharan Africa
LALIGA has chosen breadth over a single exclusive partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, stacking a pay-TV incumbent, two broadcasters with local reach and now a global streaming platform gets the league in front of more fans than only one distributor could manage alone, particularly across the continent where pay-TV penetration, mobile data costs and piracy all vary sharply by market.
The approach remains different for DAZN, it doesn't need exclusivity to make the deal work. What it needs is enough recognisable viewing content sitting alongside FIFA+ and its other leagues to give a subscriber a reason to open the app on a non-matchday, and enough of a foothold in the region's fastest-growing football audience to justify the investment before the next rights cycle.
"Sub-Saharan Africa is a region with enormous passion for football and a growing community of LALIGA fans," Javier Tebas, President of LALIGA."Through this agreement with DAZN, we are strengthening our long-standing relationship with one of our most important global partners and making it easier than ever for millions of fans across the region to follow every match of our competition. At LALIGA, we remain committed to working with leading broadcasters and digital platforms that share our ambition to bring the best football experience to audiences around the world."
DAZN Taking A Different Approach
DAZN's approach is quite different, it doesn't need exclusivity to make the deal work. What it needs is enough recognisable content sitting alongside FIFA+ and its other leagues to give a subscriber a reason to open the app on a non-matchday, and enough of a foothold in the region's fastest-growing football audience to justify the outlay before the next rights cycle. A subscriber who signs up chasing LALIGA's marquee names now finds a platform stocked with African confederation and domestic-league football sitting right next to it, which looks like a deliberate retention play rather than a coincidence. Whether that combination converts casual viewers into paying subscribers, in markets where streaming habits and disposable income differ enormously from DAZN's established European base, is the question the next three seasons will answer.
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