Italy's top-tier Serie A football league has announced that the domestic TV rights to air matches for the 2018-2021 seasons have been awarded to Sky Italia and media company Perform Group for EUR 973 million a year. “The sale of TV rights has finally reached a conclusion,” said league chairman Gaetano Micciche after the football league had spent the best part of a year trying to sell the rights. In a statement Sky confirmed it would broadcast 266 matches a season live, equivalent to 7 out of 10 games per match day.
Perform added that the deal means it will launch its DAZN live and on-demand sports streaming service in Italy. It secured multi-platform broadcast rights to 114 Serie A matches per season over the next three years, including the Saturday night match at 8.30pm, and matches on Sunday at 12.30pm and 3:00pm, plus three exclusive games for every midweek round of fixtures.
The figure is slightly under the EUR 1.05 billion offered by Spanish broadcaster Mediapro in the cancelled tender held earlier this year but the league said Sky and Perform may have to pay out a further EUR 100 million a season depending on subscriptions and revenues. Mediapro did not take part in the new auction after its contract was annulled by a court last month on antitrust grounds and it failed to provide financial guarantees in time.
Italian broadcaster Mediaset, the previous owner of the three-year rights, said it had offered a total of EUR 600 million over three years and would now approach Sky and Perform to secure a licensing deal for its pay-TV subscribers.
