Serie A unable to get favorable offers for domestic rights

Serie A is struggling to land domestic broadcasting rights. The league’s broadcasting rights, at both domestic and international levels, expire at the end of the 2023/24 season. However, as seen with the Premier League in 2022, leagues like to have their broadcast rights locked up some time in advance.

The Italian top flight is entering private negotiations over the future of its domestic media rights. Serie A deemed offers from a pair of broadcast entities as too low based on the league’s valuations.

Serie A targeted a 6-year deal worth around $7.86 billion for domestic rights. By comparison, the current three-year deal pocketed the league a reported $3 billion. DAZN broadcasts the majority of the games, and Sky Italia also chips in with coverage, albeit not as much as DAZN.

Still, Serie A did not receive any offers that it was overly pleased with. Serie A is fighting to maximize profits, but it may be forced into choosing between three broadcasters. According to Reuters, those are DAZN, Sky Italia and MFE-MediaforEurope, formerly known as Mediaset. The league did not release any information about who it would be entering negotiations with.

Regardless, Serie A is fighting an uphill battle, particularly given the profits of other leagues. Namely, Serie A’s current three-year deal is less than half of the domestic broadcasting rights that the Premier League pulls in from English broadcasters.

Serie A waiting for domestic rights before looking abroad

Securing a broadcasting partner, or partners, in Italy is the top priority for Serie A. Only then can the league start to look at international deals, including the United States. Just like the domestic rights, Serie A’s deal with CBS expires at the conclusion of the 2023/24 season.

CBS has done great work with Serie A, it simply faces the challenge of continuing that growth. The broadcaster is a potential home for a number of leagues, and many of those competitions would do well to find the in-depth analysis that CBS’s array of hosts can provide.

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