The cost of watching football in Spain is climbing yet again, with the 2025-26 season seeing record subscription prices alongside an aggressive new campaign by La Liga to curb illegal streaming.
According to a study by Roams, Movistar and Orange remain the only providers offering complete football packages, with DAZN continuing to broadcast five La Liga matches per week. Movistar’s average annual cost for non-customers has risen to €1,413.75, up €19.20 from last season, with monthly prices starting
at €115. Orange has introduced larger increases, with average annual costs jumping 18% to €1,672, though it remains the cheaper full-service option at €78 per month for La Liga and Champions League coverage. DAZN’s premium package has also risen from €39.99 to €44.99 per month for flexible subscriptions.
These price hikes arrive as La Liga president Javier Tebas pushes to cut piracy in half this season. From a “war room” in Madrid, about 50 staff monitor and take down illegal streams that cost clubs an estimated €600–700 million annually in lost broadcast revenue. La Liga says that 40% of Spanish viewers watch matches through unauthorized sources, a figure that can reach 80% in parts of Asia.
A key breakthrough came with a December 2024 court ruling that allows La Liga to order internet providers such as Telefónica, Vodafone, MasOrange, and Digi to block offending IP addresses in real time. This has already reduced IP-based piracy in Spain by 60%, Tebas claimed. The league’s broader strategy includes legal action, public awareness campaigns warning of fraud and data theft risks, and agreements with tech intermediaries like Twitch and Akamai to disrupt illegal broadcasts.
However, Tebas has accused companies like Cloudflare of shielding pirate sites, leading to mass IP blocks that sometimes also take down legitimate websites. Despite these controversies, La Liga says no affected company has filed a complaint. The ultimate aim is not to eradicate piracy entirely, but to make illegal viewing so unreliable that users turn to legal channels, even at record prices.
The push-and-pull between soaring subscription fees and La Liga’s crackdown on piracy underscores an irony: while the league fights to drive fans toward legal viewing options, the escalating costs of official packages risk pushing some viewers back toward the very illicit streams it is trying to eliminate.
