Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A unveiled last-minute broadcast rights tie-ups in several key markets ahead of the start of the new season.
The league’s general assembly has disclosed new agreements with OneFootball in the UK, Fox Deportes (Spanish-language coverage) in the US, and TV4 (Sweden) and MTV (Finland) in Scandinavia.
These deals were announced last Friday, the day before the 2024-25 season of the 20-team Serie A got underway.
In the UK, the OneFootball deal comes alongside an existing agreement with pay-TV’s TNT Sports, while in the US CBS’ Paramount+ streaming service will provide English-language coverage, as was unveiled last month.
The Finland and Sweden agreements, however, are new for those markets.
For the last cycle in those countries, C More held rights.
Over the last few weeks, Serie A has been scrambling to complete its international broadcast partner portfolio.
The league’s international rights tenders have been taking place since mid-2023, with the league having substantially changed its method for selling media rights across the next cycle.
Previously, the vast majority of rights were held by the Infront agency. Now, the league is carrying out a sizeable proportion of negotiations, in various markets, directly with broadcasters (although Infront is distributing rights across Asia-Pacific).
Over the last few weeks, deals have been unveiled in Spain (DAZN), Russia (Match TV), and across 15 Eastern European and Central Asian countries with Saran.
During the last cycle, the Italian league reportedly brought in just over $650 million across the three seasons from overseas broadcast rights.
Domestically, the league will be covered by DAZN and pay-TV’s Sky Italia for the next five seasons.
The second-tier Serie B, meanwhile, is finalizing a deal with the Amazon Prime Video streaming service, it has been reported.
Italian media over the weekend quoted Mauro Balata, the Serie B president, as saying: “The news today is that the league has signed an agreement with Prime Video. We are defining the technical details. Today we have defined all the legal and negotiating aspects.”
This comes after a three-year rights deal between Serie A and streaming service DAZN was unveiled last week.
The saga of selling Serie B’s domestic rights for the next cycle has been a lengthy and convoluted one, with the league having been forced to issue several rounds of tenders after failing to come up with a solution until very much the last minute.
From the beginning of the 2021-22 season through the end of the 2023-24 campaign, Serie B was broadcast by a mix of pay-TV operator Sky Italia, and now-defunct streaming service Helbiz.
The league recently lobbied Italian soccer’s FIGC governing body to step in and ensure the financial security of Serie B and other non-elite soccer competitions in the country through the distribution of greater revenues.
One option that was initially considered by Serie B was the creation of an in-house channel and/or streaming service to house the rights, as a direct-to-consumer service was at one point seen as the only realistic option.
