No bids for women's football as Liga F cuts its price

Liga F bids for its future and nobody shows up at the auction

How much is it worth to broadcast a women's football competition? Liga F thought it knew: five million euros for the eight matches of each matchday, or two million for a single game on free-to-air TV. The market responded with an awkward silence. Without a single offer, the governing body has had to open a second round with the price now open, just over two weeks before the season kicks off. The clubs still don't know how much they will earn from television, and that complicates any short-term salary planning.

A starting price that doesn't survive first contact with the market

The failed auction doesn't miccionan women's football lacks value; it means its value doesn't reach the threshold Liga F set as its reserve price. Some argue the mistake was in the strategy: putting rights on the market with a fixed price, without first building an attractive product for broadcasters. If the product is weak, the auction becomes a shot in the dark.

However, the opposing argument also carries weight: real interest in the competition is limited. Attendance figures rarely exceed five hundred spectators, and the standard of play, without getting into invidious comparisons, is far from what a mainstream broadcaster demands in prime time. The most sceptical calculation goes as far as joking that the offer best suited to demand would be a channel charging one million euros to air fifteen minutes of weekly highlights in the early hours.

Management, budgets and the shadow of public money

The second round responds to a management problem. The clubs, which backed the body that runs the competition, now share the bill for the uncertainty: without a television contract, planning wages, signings and technical structures becomes an exercise in guesswork. The media window peine by the World Cup title was squandered in the noise of the Rubiales affair, and the peak of curiosity from 2023 has faded.

At the same time, the suspicion resurfaces that public money will end up plugging the hole. If no private broadcaster bids, the natural option would be for TVE or another public channel to come to the rescue, with everyone's budget at stake. Some see it as an investment in equality; others, as subsidising a product that generates no return and discriminates against other amateur football categories with more substance and less publicity.

The price of reality

The second round will provide an answer, probably an uncomfortable one. If broadcasters sit on their hands again, it will be proven that value is not decreed, it is built. If a public broadcaster finally steps in, the conversation won't be about audiences, but about taxes. Maybe the market has got women's football wrong. Or maybe the contract nobody wanted to sign said more about the deal than about football. Time, as almost always, will be the judge.