The pay channel takes over the rights for the next two seasons and will start from the Miami Open. “As” obtains this exclusivity which is however not yet official.

A new beautiful contract

According to the Spanish media, Movistar + would have taken over the rights for 2022 and 2023. This channel is paying and has a rather high cost.

This new partnership comes a few days after the announcement of a new contract with Mediapro and a few months after the agreement with Canal +.

This is great news for the World Padel Tour, in the short term for financial income and in the medium term to establish this financial balance sheet. However, the transition from a free channel to a pay channel has often done damage in Spain, with a sharp drop in audience. In the long term, this model is not positive for still emerging sports. Whether the WPT is still thinking long term remains to be seen.

The threat of paying?

Until now, the WPT had always been broadcast free-to-air on the GOL TV channel. These broadcasts gave a very large visibilite au padel, which has largely contributed to the growth of this sport in Spain.

This strategy was great for growing viewership and seemed to be one of the big strengths of the WPT. Now it will take pay to see the padel in Spain.

The cost of Movistar+ is rather very significant, and hard to believe that the 170 people watching the Cordoba Open final, will subscribe to Movistar +. This will therefore most likely lead to a decline in the audience of the World Padel Tour.

By way of comparison, Dorna Sports, the company which manages the Championship of Moto GP, tries to find a solution since the transition to private. Indeed, the audiences fell by more than 70%, thus impacting all the economic actors of the championship. This example is very close and this scenario could repeat itself.

Le padel has yet to achieve football or tennis notoriety to ask viewers to pay so much to see it. In France or Spain, viewers are not ready in any case. In other cultures, for example in Sweden, people are not so reluctant to pay to see sports.

In conclusion, this news is good for the economy of the WPT, but the padel professional risks losing fans in the affair.

The WPT's OTT to save the audience?

Last year, the World Padel Tour announced a new platform developed by LaLiga to broadcast matches.

For the moment little information about this broadcast, but this application could be the possibility for the WPT to broadcast content for free. Thus, if the content remains attractive, the public who is not ready to pay to see the matches could stay via this OTT platform, which will necessarily offer delayed matches.

From his names, we can guess his Spanish and Italian origins. Lorenzo is a multilingual passionate about sports: journalism by vocation and events by worship are his two legs. He is the international gentleman of Padel Magazine. You will often see it on the various international competitions, but also on the major French events. @eyeofpadel on Instagram to see his best photos of padel !

On the same subject

Tags