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Spanish Football
With recent international success and a proven European pedigree in club football, Spanish football is widely regarded as one of the best in both international and club football terms.
Generating over 7.5billion Euro’s in 2013, football in Spain is big business and can command huge sponsorship deals for individual clubs, leagues and cup competitions.
Spain’s oldest teams, Recreativo de Huelva and Sevilla FC played the first game in Spain on March 8th 1890. Sevilla ran out 2-0 winners but it is interesting to note that only two players on each team were Spanish with the other players coming from Great Britain. The game was brought to Spain by British workers in the late 1800’s and flourished from there.
La Liga
Founded in 1929 La Liga is widely regarded as being one of the strongest leagues in club football in European football. Barcelona ran out winners of the first championship and of the teams that made the original league only Barcelona, Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao have been regular fixtures since.
Only 9 different clubs in Spain have won La Liga with Real Madrid winning the most with 32, Barcelona have won 23 with Atletico Madrid on 10, Athletic Bilbao on 8, Vaencia on 6, Real Sociedad on 2 and Sevilla, Deportivo La Coruna and Real Betis all having 1 title each.
Attendances
Attendances in La Liga can vary quite considerably with the highest La Liga capacity being Barcelona’s 99,354 at the Camp Nou and the lowest being Eibar’s Ipurua stadium holding just 7,083.
The average attendances in Spain as of April 25th is 27,709 with Barcelona top of the charts with an average of 78,222 and Eibar at the bottom with an average attendance of 5,359.
Broadcasting
At the start of the 2016/17 season domestic TV rights for La Liga were worked out with Telefonica, Movistar and Mediapro in a 3 year deal worth around 2.65 billion Euros.
This was a unique deal in that it follows an equal distribution model while previous seasons saw teams individually negotiate their TV deals.
A deal for the international TV rights was reached earning La Liga around 500million Euros per season.
Prize Money
Because of the equal distribution of TV money the prize money for the 2016/17 season is broken down with 50% of the total prize pot being shared equally between all the clubs.
25% of the prize pot will be distributed by finishing position with a sliding scale going from top to bottom.
25% will be distributed based on the resource generation of each club with some clubs bringing huge attendances and international pull in comparison to others.
The 2015/16 season saw the prize money distributed as such;
Team Prize Money
Barcelona 140€ Million
Real Madrid 140€ Million
Valencia 48€ Million
Atletico Madrid 42€ Million
Sevilla 32€ Million
Athletic Bilbao 32€ Million
Villarreal 32€ Million
Real Betis 30€ Million
Espanyol 28€ Million
Real Sociedad 25€ Million
Malaga 25€ Million
Getafe 25€ Million
Osasuna 22€ Million
Celta de Vigo 22€ Million
Levante 22€ Million
Granada 18€ Million
Elche 18€ Million
Valladiod 18€ Million
Rayo Vallecano 18€ Million
Almeria 18€ Million
Cup Competitions
The Cope Del Rey is the main Spanish cup completion and started in 1902 in honour of the coronation of Alfonso XIII. The name itself translates as the ‘King’s Cup’Team and it has been won by 14 different teams with Barcelona winning the most with 27, Athletic Bilbao winning 23 and Real Madrid winning 19.
The Supercopa de Espagna is played between the winners of La Liga and the Copa Del Rey and was founded in 1982. A total of 10 clubs have won the trophy with Barcelona winning the most with 11 and real Madrid close behind on 9.
La Liga 2
La Liga 2 is the second tier of Spanish football and is also known as the Segunda Division. Attendances in La liga 2 are considerably lower that for La Liga however the stadium capacities of the teams in this league are a lot lower.
As of April 25th 2017 the average attendance for La Liga 2 is 7,293. The highest average attendance for La Liga 2 is held by Real Zaragoza with 15,700 while the lowest is at AD Alcorcon with 2,517.
Segunda Division & Below
The Segunda Division B is the third tier of Spanish football with the Tercera Division representing the 4th tier.
Below the Tercera Division at level 5, 19 regional federations run a pyramid league system that allows access to the higher divisions for successful teams.
Spanish International Football
In recent years the Spanish national team have been one of the most dominant teams in the world. Winning back to back European Championships in 2008 and 2012 with their only World Cup win to date sandwiched in between in 2010 this saw their most successful period and one of the most impressive international periods for any team.