Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A has finally secured a media rights tie-up for the 2024-25 campaign - which began in mid-August - in France.
A two-year deal with the L’Equipe subscription channel, unveiled yesterday (October 28) during the Sportel sports business conference in Monaco, gives the network the live rights to two of the league’s 10 fixtures per matchday, as well as highlights rights for all matches through the length of the deal.
France had been one of the major markets in which the 20-team Serie A had not yet secured a rights deal, despite the 2024-25 campaign already being 10 rounds in.
Last season, (and for the whole of the 2021-24 cycle) French coverage of the competition was provided by the BeIN Sports pay-TV broadcaster. GlobalData Sport has estimated the total value of that tie-up as $42.6 million.
One of the most prominent French players in Serie A is Marcus Thuram, who plays for league champions Inter Milan.
The Italian league has been frantically looking to tie up the last deals for its next rights cycle over the last few months, with the overall process having begun in mid-2023.
Serie A substantially changed its approach in terms of finding broadcast partners for the next cycle - previously, the vast majority of rights were held by the Infront agency, whereas now, the league is carrying out a sizeable proportion of negotiations, in various markets, directly with broadcasters.
During the last cycle, the Italian league reportedly brought in just over $650 million across the three seasons from overseas broadcast rights.
One of the last significant rights deals unveiled was a five-year tie-up in Africa with SportyTV, for one game per matchday, disclosed in early September. That deal ensures free-to-air coverage in Nigeria and Ghana, and English and Portuguese-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Additionally, SportyTV can sublicense these rights to 20 other countries (Angola, Botswana, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Africa, St. Helena and Ascension, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
Domestically, the league will be covered by DAZN and pay-TV’s Sky Italia for the next five seasons.
L’Equipe, meanwhile, also includes the Copa del Rey (Spanish) and DFB-Pokal (German) knockout cup competitions in its portfolio, in terms of European soccer rights.
Earlier this month, the outlet announced Vincent Broussard as the new general manager of its TV division.
