Guadalajara, Mexico — One of Mexico´s most important soccer teams, Chivas announced the launch of their very own Chivas TV, an OTT platform that will be available worldwide beginning on July 1. This comes on the heels of last month’s announcement that the the team would not renew their broadcasting contract with Televisa which this year was offering considerably lesson for the broadcasting rights than in years prior.
“In just the past eight years, Televisa paid us $14.8 million annually for broadcast rights to our games. This year, they offered to pay us only $6 million, which is absurd,” Chivas TV/Omnilife Director General-CEO Jose Luis Higuera, recently told Variety. “The Chivas club has up to 40 million fans worldwide, that’s why we’re starting this channel,” he added.
Chivas owner Jorge Vergara, a Mexican entrepreneur, film producer (Y Tu Mamba Tambien) and founder of the nutritional multi-level Omnilife has owned the Chivas since 2002. Vergara was recently quoted on the Pasion Futbol website as saying, “We are going to break paradigms. We will be criticized, but we believe in changes. What is coming is going to be spectacular for fans.”
Through this new soccer streaming platform, the Mexican club will showcase all Chivas games worldwide in addition addition to pre-game talk and post-game analysis. However, the programming will only partially air in the U.S. where the Chivas’ contract with Spanish-language network still has two more years to go.
Chivas TV joins the growing OTT market in Mexico which is currently dominated giant by Netflix, followed by local streaming platforms ClaroVideo and Televisa’s Blim.
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