Brazilian commercial broadcaster Band is in advanced negotiations with the IMG agency to acquire the rights to the Italian Serie A football league.
The broadcaster is understood to be the only party vying for the Brazilian rights to the top tier of Italian domestic football and is hoping an agreement can be struck later this week.
Band has submitted an offer for the free-to-air and pay-television rights, according to UOL, in a proposal to show one fixture per matchweek on free-to-air television and the remaining matches on its sister pay-television channel BandSports.
The rights in Brazil to Serie A were previously held by subscription OTT platform DAZN, which cancelled its deal one year early. DAZN was one-and-a-half seasons into its deal after beginning its broadcasts from the 15th matchweek of the 2018-19 campaign.
Band, which recently added the Russian Premier League rights to its portfolio, has not aired the Serie A since the 2007-08 season, when Brazilian interest was driven by AC Milan’s Brazilian star Kaká.
The IMG agency holds the league’s international rights as part of its initial €380m- ($454m-) per-season deal which includes international broadcast rights, club archive rights, betting rights, a marketing spend and fee for access to the broadcast signal.
The 2020-21 Serie A season will kick off on September 19.