A beginner’s guide to following La Liga in Spain - Part Two

Last week we spoke about the media’s largely Real Madrid bias you can expect to see if you follow La Liga in Spain. Today we’re going to wrap up all the other aspects which need to change while also focusing on the positive side of things and what it does right, as it certainly isn’t all bad.

Now I remember when I was a child ‘Match of the Day’ was a key component of every football supporter’s life. There wasn’t the access to games that there is now so you were resorted to watching Des Lynam on a Saturday night, hoping your side were one of the featured teams of the weekend or you’d be left with just the goals being shown at the end.

Over in Spain the highlights package of the weekend’s games has always been on pay-to-view channels until this season. It’s embarrassing that it took this long but I suppose it’s better late than never, right? Unfortunately they follow the same script as every other football related show and dismiss the rest of the league to talk about Real Madrid and Barcelona because, who doesn’t need to hear more about them?

I caught the last 10 minutes of the new round-up programme a couple of weeks ago but felt it wouldn’t be fair to judge, so made a point of watching it last weekend after the Eibar-Celta game. It’s worth bearing in mind that ‘La 1’ is the Spanish equivalent of BBC One, so you’d expect them to produce something special. I mean, come on, they’ve finally got La Liga back on the main channel – you wouldn’t want it to come across as disjointed, unprepared and downright lazy. Yet that is exactly what you get. They announce videos but run something completely different, get club badges wrong, fail to realise who the current leader is and instead of offering a universal outlook on La Liga instead fall into the same traps as everyone else and heavily base the content on Real Madrid and Barcelona. Audience levels have been very low so far.

The mind boggles as to how someone is paid to produce the show. Then again, when you have the head of the LPF saying he doesn’t want La Liga matches on free-to-air TV you’re up against it. He was on the Spanish radio show ‘El Partido de las 12’ and quipped “SpongeBob SquarePants got 5 times the viewing figures of last week’s Rayo-Depor game.” He wants the games to fail so he can offer the full set of fixtures to perspective buyers. It isn’t helped by the fact none of the sides in Europe will be shown for free. He fails to realise that if fans saw bigger sides once or twice it could encourage people to purchase a subscription to watch more games. No, no. It must fail so I can tell you it was a mistake appears to be Tebas’ way of thinking.

There’s a large section of football fans in Spain that don’t contribute in a way that financially benefits La Liga yet it’s that type of pig-headed stubbornness from Tebas which puts off prospective clients. The constant changing of dates and kick off times doesn’t help either. You wait until we actually have a Christmas fixture list this year, that’s going to be fun. People feel disrespected by the league in general. Fans are often the last on the list of those who matter.

Apart from an inability to plan ahead due to the indecision and errors at the top, there was also the issue of the price when it came to buying the football packages. Spain is a country with crippling levels of unemployment and the key demographic of football fans, aged 18-25, are the most affected. If you wanted all the football, domestic and abroad, you needed the full package which cost over €80 per month. Then other games were available on separate channel for €15-20 more. For that €100 you didn’t even get a telephone line or an internet package. It was far too expensive.

There’s been a change for the better with added competition, forcing the companies which have made a deal with the new channel to offer low prices to entice people to stop illegally streaming games, to make it feasible to the average fan again. It’s great to see but I don’t think anyone is under the illusion this will be the case next season but hey, I’m not going to complain. However those with the biggest TV/internet provider in Spain are currently unable to watch Champions League and Europa League games after the two sides failed to reach a deal to incorporate the new channel. Fans, again, are the biggest losers in all of this.

And the funny thing is that if you pay for the package, they won’t even acknowledge your team before/after the game, only during. You can become the leader but it doesn’t matter as we’ve got to spend 30 minutes previewing Barcelona’s next match instead. No other teams, except Real Madrid and Barca, even get previews! Don’t act surprised now.

I also believe there’s a lot more casual fans in Spain as opposed to England. I know many that follow a team but rarely watch any matches, instead basing their opinion on what they’ve read in the newspaper, online or what other friends have told them. This creates a small section of knee jerkers who, when things go wrong, turn to kicking cars and hurling abuse as players arrive/leave training or the stadium after a match. Ask Bale about that.

If Tebas wants to market La Liga as the best league in the world he at least needs to get home fans on his side and boost the image of the league in its entirety, not push the already established teams. Villarreal are leaders of La Liga for the first time in their history but this story isn’t pushed in the newspapers or on TV, it’s all about the Madrid derby. And that’s fine, because it’s a big game, but other teams exist too. The ironic thing is once Real or Barca regain top spot they won’t stop running ‘LÍDERES’ stories.

But it’s not all bad following football in Spain. There’s a nice connection between a lot of clubs and their fans, a sense of transparency between the two, especially the smaller sides. Fans are allowed to wait outside the training ground every day if they so wish to get autographs or take photos alongside their heroes. Trade this against the heavy security presence around every Premier League match which I always found unnecessary.

The ability to watch every game of La Liga each weekend is something only Premier League fans can dream of. You never have to miss a match or find a dodgy stream with flashing advertisements as you can find a bar showing your team’s game all over the country. Your girlfriend (or boyfriend) might not be happy, but you most certainly will be!

I’ve also noticed that a lot of fans buy club shop merchandise, more so than in England. There’s a perception over there that wearing an adult replica shirt is wrong past a certain age – ridiculous notion, by the way - whereas over here they wear their colours with pride. If not with a replica shirt then with a polo shirt sporting the club’s badge or a tracksuit jacket or even a cap.

The collective TV package deal is a great start moving forward – although not with its own drawbacks – and you would hope that it’d encourage more publicity for the rest of the sides, not just the usual suspects. It’s a directive that needs to come from the top but it could be the most difficult one to change. And if they can’t turn around certain shows then produce new ones which do cover a more broader audience – but on a free-to-view TV.

Real Madrid and Barcelona are great, I think we all acknowledge that, but the league itself has to be bigger than those two or it’ll never compete internationally with the likes of the Premier League.