Lega Serie A

Lega Serie A’s invitation to tender for its media rights could allow Sky Italia to secure a monopoly of Serie A rights in the next cycle, dealing a potentially fatal blow to its main rival Mediaset Premium. Bids are due tomorrow, June 10.

Italy’s antitrust authority, the AGCM, has opted to suspend action on a complaint brought forward by Italian broadcaster Mediaset to enable the tender process for the domestic rights to Serie A can proceed as planned, while French media company Vivendi has expressed interest in the tender.

Eleven Sports Network said this week its strategy of targeting second-tier rights in larger markets, and running a ‘lean and mean’ business operation, would succeed in Italy, despite the country’s pay-television market having proved difficult for other players.

Clubs from Italy’s Serie A, the top division of domestic football, have unanimously approved a new set of guidelines for the centralised selling of the next package of rights to the league and other competitions.

Italy’s top football league, Lega Serie A, is considering selling its international rights before its domestic rights in the next cycle due to uncertainty about the future of pay-television platform Mediaset Premium.

The vindication last month by a Roman court of the way Lega Serie A sold its media rights for the current cycle was absolute, but not definitive.

Lega Serie A and Uefa are in a race to be first to sell their rights in Italy for the period 2018-19 to 2020-21.

New sports-rights agency Interregional Sports Group beat rival offers from betting rights specialists Sportradar and Perform to pick up domestic betting rights to Italy’s Serie A.

A group of Italian MPs from the coalition government has submitted an amendment to the Melandri Law which would require one live Serie A match per week to be shown on free-to-air television.

The investigation by Italy’s antitrust authority into the sale of Serie A rights, which led to €66m ($75m) in fines being handed down this month, centred on negotiations in a four-day period in June 2014 after bids had been made.

Italy’s antitrust authority has notified Lega Serie A, Infront Sports & Media, Mediaset and Sky Italia that their behaviour during the auction process for Serie A media rights constituted a breach of European competition law.

MP & Silva is expected to make a profit on its investment of €185.7m ($210m) per season in Serie A international rights, according to research conducted in local broadcast markets by TV Sports Markets.

Interview with Roberto Dalmiglio and Konstantinos Filippas, chief commercial officer and European managing director respectively of the MP & Silva agency, about the Serie A international sales cycle and recent deals in the Nordics.

Football rights fees across sub-Saharan Africa continued their rapid growth this month, with big increases paid for three of Europe’s major football leagues.

The bidding for the international rights to Italian football’s Coppa Italia and Supercoppa is seen by many as a battle by proxy between the two major Middle Eastern pay-television operators: Abu Dhabi Media and beIN Sports.

The competitive dynamics of a booming sports media-rights market explain why Italian football is enjoying solid growth, despite still having largely failed to resolve problems such as crowd violence, match-fixing and poor-quality stadiums.