Italian men’s soccer’s top-tier Serie A has now taken its media rights tender process for the next multi-year cycle, beginning with the 2024-25 campaign, to Poland, Sportcal (GlobalData) has been told.
Following initial media reports earlier, it has been confirmed that a request for proposals (RFP) process was sent live on Friday (April 12), with a deadline of April 26.
Polish fans of Serie A can currently view the action via the Eleven Sports broadcaster, through the end of this season.
The league has been waiting (Sportcal understands) to launch this tender until after the Polish media rights process for the UEFA Champions League between 2024-25 and 2026-27 concludes (with these rights having now been sold to Canal Plus).
Well-known Polish players contracted to Serie A clubs include Wojciech Szczęsny of Juventus and Piotr Zieliński of Napoli.
This comes a few days after rights in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the next Serie A cycle were secured by the AMC Networks International Group.
Through 2028-29, Serie A coverage will be available via the Sport 1 and Sport 2 channels, as will games from the Coppa Italia cup competition and the Italian Super Cup.
In the two countries, Serie A rights are currently held by Nova Sport and Premier Sports, through sub-licensing deals with Saran.
Serie A has substantially changed its method for selling media rights across the next cycle.
Previously, the vast majority of rights were held by the Infront agency, which then sold them on. Now, however, the league is carrying out a sizeable proportion of negotiations, in various markets, directly with broadcasters.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia tie-ups were first announced as having been voted through by the 20-team league in late November (without AMC’s name being publicly disclosed), and since then the two parties have been engaged in detailed negotiations.
Then, in late December, contracts were voted through (again, without the broadcasters themselves being revealed) by the league in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Balkan area.
In late February, Portugal’s Sport TV announced it had retained Serie A rights through 2026-27, having originally broadcast the Italian league in 2015.
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.
Out of the deals voted through in December, the contract with the most value is that signed in the Balkans, coming to €24 million ($26.3 million) each season.
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.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, Serie A - via Infront - concluded a short-term rights deal in the UK for free-to-air coverage of a select number of games from the remainder of 2023-24, with commercial broadcaster ITV.
As part of the agreement, ITV will offer live coverage of one match from each Saturday during the last few weeks of the season on its ITVX streaming service.
In terms of the next market in which broadcast partners for the next cycle will be unveiled, Serie A is currently engaged in multiple conversations and negotiation windows.
