Sports streaming service DAZN is leading the race for securing the domestic TV rights of Serie A matches in 2021-2024 with an offer worth €850 million per season for all matches. The only solid contender against DAZN is Sky Italia, who are offering €750 million per season.
Previously, Amazon was eliminated from the bidding war as the digital giants were interested in a limited package, which didn’t fit the Italian league’s model. This narrowed down the race to Sky, DAZN, Mediapro, and Discovery, all of whom failed to reach the €1.15 billion per season demand of Serie A. Following private negotiations, Sky’s Italian wing and DAZN are the remaining names in the race.
To officially assign broadcasting rights for the next three Serie A seasons, the assembly of Lega Serie A will meet on Tuesday. It should be noted that Sky and DAZN are also the current Serie A broadcasting rights holders, with their term expiring at the end of 2020-21 season. Sky has paid €780 million per year to the league for broadcasting seven out of the 10 matches scheduled for each of the league’s 38 rounds. Combined with DAZN’s deal of paying €193 million for streaming the remaining three games, both broadcasters have provided €973 million per year to Lega Serie A during the 2018-2021 cycle.
DAZN wants to become the main provider of Italian football content in the next three years. According to Italy’s daily Repubblica, DAZN is offering €840 million per year to Lega Serie A for exclusively broadcasting 70% of the Serie A games on their streaming platform. Sky’s offer to host the same number of games is €750 million, which is €90 million less than DAZN’s offer. With another offer to allocate €70 million for creating an OTT platform to stream the remaining 30% of the Serie A matches, Sky’s total bid is around €820 million.
While DAZN wants to have an upper hand in the contract this time, there is a chance that Serie A would combine the two contenders’ offers to match their proceeds of 2018-21. Although the league won’t reach their target of €1.15, by combining DAZN’s offer to stream 70% of the games for €840 million and Sky’s proposal to create an OTT service for €70 million, Serie A can earn around €910 million, which is not far from the previous amount of €973 million.