La Liga’s Attempted Expansion into the United States Has a Critical Problem

La Liga wants Barcelona and Real Madrid to start playing competitive matches in the USA, against the protestations of the players themselves. Yet this plan for expansion into the US market comes at a time where most people can’t even watch La Liga on TV in the United States.

BeIN Sports, the channel that owns the rights to broadcast Spanish league games in the US, has been locked in a battle of negotiations with cable providers.

Comcast’s XFINITY and Verizon Fios dropped them, and now, DIRECTV and AT&T’s U-Verse have dropped them too. BeIN wants to be shown among the basic levels of sports programming, the way NBC Sports is shown. That would mean consumers have to pay less money to get the…