Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A has secured a five-year media rights extension in Russia with Gazprom Media-owned sports broadcaster Match TV.
The exclusive extension comes as Serie A scrambles to complete its international broadcast partner portfolio before the 2024-25 season gets underway in mid-August.
The previous deal between Match TV and the Italian league came into effect at the start of 2021-22, and ran through the 2023-24 campaign. GlobalData Sport estimated this deal as being worth $3.72 million in total.
This new deal, through 2028-29, also extends to the Coppa Italia and Italian Super Cup competitions.
Serie A is not one of the European soccer leagues to have suspended its broadcast deals in Russia in 2022 when the country invaded Ukraine (that war is ongoing, with millions of Ukrainians displaced).
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 the UK (TNT Sports), US (CBS), and Spain (DAZN).
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.
Serie A's 2024-25 season gets underway on August 17, as Genoa take on champions Inter Milan.
Match TV, meanwhile, showed 34 out of 51 matches at this year’s UEFA European Championship national team tournament across June and July. The other matches were shown by the subscription streaming service Okko.
