Spain Expands Dynamic Internet Blocks Beyond Football to Tennis, Golf, and Entertainment Content

Summary

Spain's telecommunications operator Telefónica has secured a new court authorization to expand dynamic internet blocking beyond La Liga football matches to include other sports events and entertainment content. The Barcelona Commercial Court ruling enables Telefónica Audiovisual Digital to block IP addresses, domains, and URLs associated with unauthorized distribution of its content across tennis tournaments, golf events, movies, and series broadcasts.

The expansion represents a significant escalation of content protection measures that have already caused widespread connectivity problems in Spain since February 2025. The original blocking system, targeting La Liga matches, has repeatedly disrupted access to thousands of legitimate websites by blocking entire IP addresses used by content delivery networks like Cloudflare. The new authorization extends these blocking obligations not only to major carriers like Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, and Digi, but also to small and medium-sized regional and local internet service providers across Spain.

The court order mandates that blocking will occur on 'all days of live sports event broadcasts,' beginning immediately with Tuesday's Champions League elimination match between Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, followed by Bayern Munich versus Real Madrid on Wednesday. Telefónica will distribute lists of infringing IP addresses, URLs, and domain names to all affected operators for implementation of the dynamic blocking system.

• Blocking will occur on all broadcast days starting with Champions League matches on April 14-15, 2025
• The Spanish government has previously acknowledged that the football blocking system interferes with legitimate web access