DAZN and Sky will retain the rights to broadcast live Serie A matches in Italy for the next five seasons after Italian clubs accepted bids worth at least 4.5 billion euros ($4.8 billion).
After four months of discussions, the Serie A teams convened to examine final bids from streaming services DAZN and Sky, which totalled around 900 million euros each year until the conclusion of the 2028/2029 season, barely below the existing agreement’s yearly worth.
Seventeen of the 20 clubs backed the offer but the decision drew sharp criticism from Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis.
“It’s a total defeat for Italian football, these deals will be the death of Italian football. The problem is being a borrower or an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur must know how to measure the risk area, it is more convenient but this will never implement the value of Italian football”, he stated via press release.
Serie A earns around 930 million euros every season from the sale of its TV rights in Italy under a three-year contract that expires next June, with DAZN once again taking the lion’s share. DAZN will exclusively carry seven Serie A games each week (266 out of 380 matches per season). The remaining three will be carried by DAZN and Sky (114 matches per season).
In recent months, Serie A explored the creation of a media platform to distribute matches to other TV outlets as well as the launch of a home-run live video subscription service.
Torino chairman Urbano Cairo was all for the deal claiming the league was correct to continue the partnership.
“Figures were below our initial expectations and below our current contracts, but I think we were right to continue our relationship with Sky and DAZN. Creating a Serie A TV channel now, would had meant adding further risk to a risky business he stated via press release,” he told reporters.
When some variable components tied to revenue sharing are included, the new contracts may match or even exceed the value of the present contracts and reach 1 billion euros.