Serie A’s Renewed Broadcast Package

Lega Serie A, the governing body of professional football in Italy, has finalised the domestic broadcast package for the 2021-22 to 2023-24 rights cycle which have been carved up between DAZN and Sky Italia.

The primary rights have been sealed by over-the-top subscription-based sports streaming service DAZN in a deal approximately worth €850 million per year over the next three years. DAZN will have exclusive rights for seven out of ten Serie A matches for every matchday.

The Italian arm of the Sky Group, Sky Italia, bought the secondary package, acquiring rights for 114 Serie A matches per season – three matches per matchday – for €262.5 million per year. The deal also includes non-exclusive domestic broadcast rights for Serie B, Italy’s second tier.

Overall, Serie A will approximately receive €927.5 million per year over the next three seasons under the renewed agreement, which is less than the current €973 million-a-year deal that expires at the end of this season.

For the overseas market, Serie A has secured a €64 million-a-year package with CBS Sports for broadcast in the US, where Swiss marketing agency, Infront Sports & Media, has snapped up rights for Europe, Asia, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa and the remainder of the Americas in a deal worth €139m per year.

The numbers of these new deals have taken a significant drop compared to those of the expiring ones. Luca de Siervo, Lega Serie A’s president, has said that a drop was expected and has called BeIN Sports’ abstinence from bidding for the new cycle a major reason for that.

Talking about the overseas package, he recently said: “It will definitely go down. A decent amount. Our biggest problem is BeIN. BeIN was worth 50 per cent of our package and they’ve decided not to take part in our auction. And they’ve prohibited all of their friends and intermediaries to make offers for their countries. So we’ve been ostracised by BeIN, and that makes it very complicated and difficult for us.”   

BeIN Sports is a network based in Qatar that oversees broadcast in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. BeIN has been unhappy with Serie A because of its continuous support to the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, whom Qatar claims is running a network called BeoutQ, which is essentially BeIN’s feed hijacked and transmitted over an intricate pirate network, which explains BeIN’s reluctance in renewing its deal with Lega Serie A.