Serie A Clubs Vote Through Media Rights Deals in DACH

The clubs from Italian men’s soccer’s top-tier Lega Serie A have approved contracts covering broadcast deals in multiple European territories for the next cycle. Sportcal (GlobalData) has learned that contracts have been agreed on covering broadcast deals in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Balkan area. The next international media rights cycle for Serie A begins with the 2024-25 season, and over the last few months, the league has steadily been going to different overseas markets with tenders. The agreements were signed off by the clubs at a Serie A meeting in Milan yesterday (December 18) afternoon. The process covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH), began at the end of August and kicked off the overall process. The current Serie A broadcaster in Germany and Austria is over-the-top sports broadcaster DAZN, through a deal running until the end of the current 2023-24 campaign. In Switzerland, meanwhile, the competition is presently being shown by Sky Deutschland and Teleclub. In Belgium, meanwhile, action is shown by Telenet. The process is being handled directly by Serie A, in a significant change to its previous method of going through the Infront agency. The contract with the most value is that signed in the Balkans, coming to €24 million ($26.3 million) each season. In addition to these deals, the clubs have also approved a mandate for the league to hold discussions with broadcasters in the UK and Ireland, Poland, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Serie A is shown by TNT Sports in England, by Eleven Sports in Poland, and across APAC by a range of networks, including Qatar-based BeIN Sport. These updates come after the 20 Serie A teams voted deals through in Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Israel, and the Netherlands, in late November. It has been reported that so far, the overall value of international media rights deals signed is up 14% from those covering the current cycle, which ends at the conclusion of 2023-24. 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. Serie A has turned its focus to international rights after finally concluding its domestic tender following a drawn-out process. Current partners DAZN (streaming) and Sky Italia (pay-TV) recently retained domestic media rights to the Italian top-tier for the next five seasons after the majority of clubs voted to accept their offer. The bids from the incumbent rightsholders through 2029 are worth at least €4.5 billion ($4.9 billion) in total, equating to €900 million per season. This is a small drop from the current fees paid by Sky and DAZN, however, which come to €930 million annually. Elsewhere in Serie A news, the league has unveiled a contract with the Philadelphia cream cheese brand owned by Mondelez. Through that tie-up, Philadelphia will sponsor the league’s manager of the month award. This was unveiled during a press conference given by the league’s chief executive, Lorenzo Casini, following the meeting.