La Liga to account for 2% of Spain’s GDP by 2019

LA LIGA will account for almost two per cent of Spain’s GDP by 2019, a conference has heard.

The success of Barcelona and Real Madrid, in particularly via global television rights, is expected to help the league account for 1.63% of Spain’s gross domestic product in two years’ time.

With Spain’s GDP currently just over a trillion, this would mean Spain’s top two divisions would be generating almost €20 billion.

Thanks to leading players like Messi and Ronaldo La Liga has expanded its global television rights in the past few years, selling to every country in the world bar four.

This growth in the international market has even seen fixtures moved, with one of the ‘big two’ playing at 4:15pm local time every Saturday in order to maximise the number of viewers from Asian countries.

Alfredo Lorenzo, La Liga’s security director, told the Qatar conference: “There’s been a huge transformation in professional football in Spain, we are investing in many ways.

“We expect to double the figures by 2019.”