Manny de la Fe, ESPN Gear Up for 380 LALIGA Matches as World Cup Hype Grows

Manny de la Fe, ESPN Gear Up for 380 LALIGA Matches as World Cup Hype Grows New streaming service is major part of effort to convey the energy of fans and events in Spain By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Monday, August 18, 2025 - 11:38 am

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It's shaping up to be a historic week for ESPN as it launches its new content-driven streaming service. The 380-match 2025-26 LALIGA Spanish soccer season, which started this past weekend, offers an example of how the DTC platform will bring in new LALIGA fans and enhance service to existing ones.

The goal is to build off last season, which was LALIGA's most successful across ESPN platforms. The 5.4 billion minutes viewed across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN+, Disney+, and Hulu was a 23% increase from 2023-24; linear viewing was up 32%. At the midpoint of the league's eight-year deal with ESPN, audience numbers are up 164%. The DTC push that begins this week is expected to push that number even higher.

It's going to boost LALIGA and give our coverage more eyeballs, says Manny de la Fe, VP, production, soccer, ESPN, in his second season in that role. We also have more linear windows, but, with DTC, fans will get everything, and, if you are on the app, LALIGA coverage will pop up.

A new season is a chance to make learnings a reality, and, for de la Fe, that means trying to transmit the energy generated at and around the matches in Spain to viewers in the U.S. The thing I learned the most last season was the passion of the fans in Spain. That's something that, going into this season, we want our broadcasts to show during the games, before the games, and after the games. We've talked about how we can take that in our pregame and our postgame coverage.

ESPN's production effort this season relies heavily on the team at HBS, which is handling LALIGA match coverage for the first time ever. De la Fe says the communication between HBS and ESPN has been great. Their pedigree stands out the most to me. I covered two World Cups when I was with Univision in 2006 and 2010, and HBS was a phenomenal host broadcaster. I don't expect anything different when it comes to LALIGA.

ESPN's commitment to LALIGA will grow with increased pre/postmatch coverage, original non-live programming, and more. Each week, the broadcaster has eight to 10 teams in Spain, traveling in from all over Europe and the U.S.

Our top four matches will have pitch-side reporters, De la Fe explains. We will also have digital teams and digital reporters at other matches. For special matches, like the opener in Majorca this past weekend, we will have our own production team and around 30 cameras there to make sure we're well-covered.

One change this season is that both English and Spanish postmatch coverage will be produced out of the broadcaster's Bristol, CT, facility. According to De la Fe, ESPN is in talks with LALIGA and with different partners about taking the data collected during games and delivering it to fans in a different way, such as virtual elements. I hope, he says, by midseason, we'll be able to deliver something to fans that they haven't seen before in a soccer match broadcast or soccer postgame coverage.

With the World Cup set to take place in the U.S. next summer, LALIGA's North American promotional efforts will be expanding, especially with events like local fanfests around matches in markets with a large Hispanic population. Such events drew thousands of fans across the country; the first this year will be in Houston at the end of September.

Last year, says Nicolas Garcia Hemme, VP, strategy and business development, LALIGA North America, we did nine events in 10 cities with close to 13,000 fans joining our events. That is very important. We want to offer them the possibility to feel as close as possible to what going to a game is like, with thousands of people getting together to watch the game. And then we connect with gamers who may not follow LALIGA but engage with it through gaming and other programs.

For de la Fe, the World Cup on the horizon is going to help drive interest in LALIGA, given the trove of international superstars who call the league home. The expectation for me is sky high for this season. The stars are in LALIGA, and knowing that this season is going to culminate with the World Cup, where most of our players will be stars for their countries and stars in that tournament, makes this the league to watch this season.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/08/18/manny-de-la-fe-espn-gear-up-for...
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