The Spanish football league (La Liga) on Tuesday confirmed an agreement with Facebook that will allow fans in South Asia to see every single Liga Santander game for the coming season and the two following years for free.

La Liga confirmed the games will be available in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Maldives, opening up a vast market for the Spanish game among the estimated 350 million Facebook users in the region.

The agreement sees Facebook replace Sony Pictures Network as La Liga's rights holders in the region, although neither Facebook nor La Liga have revealed the financial details of the deal.

The move continues the trend of online media groups moving into broadcasting sports, and follows the news that Amazon had won the right to broadcast a limited number of English Premier League matches from 2019 in the UK.

Facebook's Director of Global Sports Live, Peter Hutton, commented that the agreement with La Liga is an experiment. "We are looking at specific rights in specific markets and trying to learn from data from those experiences."

"What's clear about this is that 380 games will be available on Facebook. We'll keep our options open as to how we spread that content out so people can see it in as many ways as possible," he added.