Digitaltveurope.com

Telefónica’s Movistar+ is offering its entire premium football line-up, including the Spanish second division La Liga 1|2|3 channel it added last week, to customers at no extra cost until January as part of an aggressive marketing strategy to capture the bulk of sports fans in the Spanish market.

Movistar+ is also throwing in its premium movies and series channels as part of the offer, which is open to new and existing customers who sign up by September 8. Customers who have already benefited from a promotional offer are disqualified.

On Friday, the pay TV service also launched a new sports channel: #Vamos, which the operator said would provide a “window through which to watch the world’s great sporting events” such as Wimbledon tennis, NBA and Spanish Liga Endesa basketball and the English Premier League. #Vamos will be available as part of the Movistar+ basic package.

The pay TV operator is betting heavily on using its football offering to attract new customers, having paid over €4 billion for content including La Liga and Champions League football.

Telefónica and rival Orange are engaged in a battle with each other for subscribers and also to attract sports fans who currently subscribe to Vodafone’s pay TV service, which unlike Telefónica and Orange, will not have a complete line-up of football.

Orange last week directly targeted Vodafone subscribers with a low-cost football offering aimed at its existing premium TV base.