After a lengthy negotiation process, Sky Italia and DAZN have secured the rights to broadcast live Serie A matches to Italian viewers.
The process took a total of four months, reaching its culmination on Monday when Italy’s guild of football clubs agreed to a €4.5bn fee (£3.1bn) offered in a joint bid by both media companies during a meeting in the Northern City of Milan.
And while seventeen of the twenty clubs in attendance expressed support for the offer, the three remaining teams opposed it by voicing their concern that it could hurt their revenue stream in the long run.
After all, the deal amounts to around €900m (£782m) per year until the end of the 2028/29 campaign, which constitutes a decrease in the annual value that is currently in agreement.
Aurelio De Laurentiis, owner of 2022/23 champions Napoli – which was one of the concerned teams – publicly spoke at a press briefing, saying that the deal is “a total defeat for Italian football” and that “these deals will be the death of Italian football”.
Currently, Serie A rakes in around €930m (£808m) per season from the sale of its media rights in Italy from a three-year deal which again involves DAZN but expires next June.
Now, the media company has sought to renew its agreement for five more seasons by placing around €700m (£608m) on the table, according to Serie A boss Luigi De Siervo.
Sky Italia has additionally proposed €200m (£174m) to screen three Serie A games per matchday until the 2029 season ends.
But despite some of the criticism that this could prove to be a step back for Italian football, De Siervo assured that the deal may very well bring over €1bn (£869m) when taking into consideration all aspects of the agreement.
The slight undervalue of the brokered deal when compared to the previous one comes a month after Serie A announced plans to launch its very own in-house streaming service to showcase fixtures.
This was a result of the league pausing negotiations with broadcasters after falling short of attracting interest for its initial proposal which valued the rights at €1bn-per-season.
At the time, De Siervo commented: “We have the structure to offer (matches) directly to viewers…we are considering this option. We won’t back offers deemed as too low.”
