Lega Serie A, the organising body of the top division of Italian club football, has elected to continue talks with Spanish agency Mediapro over its offer for domestic rights to the league.
The offer was the main item on the agenda of a Lega assembly meeting held on Monday. It emerged last week that Mediapro had increased its rights offer to a basic €1.15bn ($1.3bn) per season for the three campaigns spanning 2021-22 to 2023-24, up from the previous offer of €1.05bn per season.
This would increase to €1.283bn factoring in fees of €55m and €78m per season for archive rights and production costs, respectively.
In a statement released following Monday’s meeting, the Lega said: “With regard to Mediapro’s proposal, in light of an overall positive assessment of the offer and simultaneously with some aspects to be clarified, the clubs have decided to keep the Shareholders’ Meeting open and gave a mandate to the Lega Council and to the managing director Luigi De Siervo to continue negotiations with the other party in the coming days.”
Under its proposals, Mediapro plans on creating a joint-venture channel with the Lega that would provide coverage of matches.
Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia and digital sports content and media company DAZN Group currently hold domestic rights to Serie A. The agreements, announced in June 2018, run until the end of the 2020-21 campaign.