Global sports streaming service DAZN has unveiled a significant three-year media rights tie-up in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A.
The agreement - which was voted through by the assembly of the 20-team Serie A in December but only announced publicly yesterday - represents an extension in Germany and Austria, but a new deal in Switzerland.
It also adds to DAZN’s domestic Serie A coverage for the 2024-25 to 2028-29 cycle.
The deal, which finally discloses a Serie A rights agreement in a major European region (with Switzerland and Austria both neighboring Italy), also covers the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa.
For the previous Serie A cycle - running between 2021-22 and 2023-24 - broadcast rights were shared by Blue+ and Sky Deutschland in Switzerland.
That cycle across Germany and Austria, meanwhile, saw DAZN pay $11.35 million in total (GlobalData estimated) for Serie A rights, through a deal that was only struck in August 2021, at the eleventh hour.
Next season, for the first time, DAZN broadcasts of Serie A in DACH will be available in either the original Italian or English, as well as German.
Current German players plying their trade at Italian clubs include Malick Thiaw at AC Milan, and Yann Aurel Bisseck at cross-city rivals Inter.
DAZN holds rights across the DACH trio to top-tier European soccer competitions such as France’s Ligue 1, Spain’s LaLiga, the pan-continental UEFA Champions League, and domestic rights to Germany’s Bundesliga.
Serie A’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.
This process is being headed up by Anna Guarnerio, who joined the league in a senior media rights role in December after spending 25 years at Infront Italy.
Deals have been publicly concluded in a range of European markets so far, but Serie A has not announced the names of the successful bidders in most of these cases, merely that agreements have been voted through by the league’s assembly.
The DACH deals, for example, were first announced in December alongside other tie-ups in Belgium and the Balkan region.
The league recently put its rights out to tender in Poland, where rights in the last cycle were held by the Eleven Sports broadcaster.
However, in major markets such as the UK and the US, tie-ups have still not been unveiled, with the new Serie A season set to start in less than three months.
Domestically, the league will be covered by DAZN and pay-TV’s Sky Italia for the next five seasons.
