Greek football club Panionios has agreed a new deal with pay-television broadcaster Nova for the rights to its home matches for the 2019-20 season.
Clubs in Greece’s top-tier Super League sell rights individually to their home matches after the breakdown of a collective agreement before the start of the 2018-19 season. Public-service broadcaster ERT and Nova held rights to seven and nine clubs, respectively, in the Super League in 2018-19. Nova’s rights for that season included Panionios.
Nova has been put under pressure by state-owned ERT after the latter agreed lucrative deals with a collection of clubs that had not signed deals before the start of the 2018-19 season. Several clubs who had already agreed deals with Nova earlier in the year were upset as clubs which signed with ERT appeared to be receiving higher rights fees.
The 2018-19 champions, PAOK has yet to sign an agreement for next season and reports from Greece today suggest the club is demanding a three-season deal and €30m from either ERT or Nova. PAOK broke from the collective agreement one season before it collapsed and signed a two-season deal with Nova, covering 2017-18 and 2018-19.
With the help of the Greek government, the Greek football league system is set for an overhaul next season. A government proposal for the restructuring was first seen by SportBusiness Media last year, however details have since changed. The new Super League will now consist of 14 clubs down from the current 16. The original proposal was to reduce the league down to 12 clubs.