Bids, bailouts and plots form backdrop of Serie A’s YouTube experiment
Italy’s Serie A will continue to make its matches available for free on YouTube in the Middle East and North Africa for the remainder of the 2021-22 season, despite receiving bids from broadcasters in the region.
F1 leveraging Drive To Survive phenomenon across key renewals from 2023
Key media rights deals expire this year in the US, F1’s most important emerging market, as well as mature and lucrative markets such as Italy, Brazil, Asia-Pacific, South America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Free-to-air channels make comeback as pay-television narrows its focus
European free-to-air broadcasters are very much back in the market for top sports rights and are becoming an increasingly attractive option for rights-holders.
Serie A picks up pieces as global media rights revenue falls 14 per cent
Though Italy’s Serie A was hamstrung by the country’s invasive regulators and by a broader bear market around the world, its own decisions have contributed to a dramatic shortfall in media rights revenue.
Middle East thaw resets market but glory days unlikely to return
Diplomatic processes put in place in 2021 to heal the rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar have brought an end to the four-and-half-year dispute, sparking hope that the region’s sports broadcasting market will soon revert to normality.
Rai’s World Cup sales effort hampered by changing world of pay-television
When Italian state broadcaster Rai bought the rights to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in April, it acquired two things: exclusive rights and a problem.
Building scale a daunting challenge for European pay-TV and OTT operators
As media giants jostle for position in an increasingly competitive European market, Frank Dunne explores the state of the pay-television industry in 2021.
European Leagues promises long-term play, ‘not get-rich-quick scheme’
The Octagon agency said this week that the centralisation of media rights to nine top-division European football leagues was about long-term growth, not a short-term cash injection.
Innovative non-exclusive sales strategy sets up Serie B for healthy increase
Italy’s second-tier football league, Serie B, looks set to be rewarded for creative thinking in the face of difficult market conditions, securing a 25-per-cent increase in the value of its domestic media rights with further deals in the pipeline.
Sky reaction to Serie A loss boosts rights market but Milan court could end mini-boom
The value of the rights to second- and third-tier properties in Italy is enjoying a mini-boom in the wake of DAZN’s acquisition in March of the main live rights to Serie A for the next three seasons. Faced with the loss of its key property, Sky is fighting back, renewing deals with MotoGP and the Bundesliga and snatching rights currently held by DAZN, such as Serie B and Ligue 1.