Panathinaikos renegotiates Nova rights deal after OTT U-turn

Greek Super League One club Panathinaikos has successfully renegotiated its deal with pay-television broadcaster Nova ahead of the coming season.

The new terms will continue to cover 2020-21 season and maintain the pay-television broadcaster’s rights as part of a two-year deal agreed before the start of last season.

The announcement comes after the Athens-based club said just over a month ago that it would broadcast its matches on its own OTT platform after rebuffing an offer from Nova.

Panathinaikos said that it had rejected a €5.7m ($6.6m) offer from Nova for the 2020-21 season, denouncing the proposal as “unprofitable”. It claimed that rivals Olympiacos and AEK Athens had been offered €11m and €6.5m, respectively, for their rights.

The club had starting offering season passes for fans to subscribe to Panathinaikos TV and would have given access to all home matches from the coming season.

Fans will now be refunded for those season passes and the club has revised the content available via the OTT platform in the 2020-21 season. Panathinaikos TV will now focus on the club’s academy teams and its various teams across a range of sports.

The 2020-21 Super League season began on September 11 but Panathinaikos have only played one match so far (an away fixture against Asteras Tripoli).

Rival Super League club PAOK had offered to assist in the creation of Panathinaikos’ platform after launching its own branded OTT, PAOK TV, before the 2019-20 season.

That launch was also preceded by the rejection of an offer from Nova with the club seeing opportunity in holding no pay-television rights deal.

Both Panathinaikos and PAOK are among the most well-followed in Greek football and attract significant viewing figures. The loss of Panathinaikos from Nova’s offering would have reduced the number of clubs it holds media rights deals with for the 2020-21 season to seven from the eight it held last season.