The TV rights film was an announced flop

In a press release published on its website, the Serie A league announced that the first phase of the sale of the five-year 2024–2029 championship television rights has begun He didn’t get itsay the least, the expected results (Who would have thought!). So it will follow”a phase of private negotiations (…). If these negotiations are unsuccessful, the League will proceed with the opening of bids from six subjects for the marketing and distribution of the Series A channel” quotes the document uploaded to the site.

An announced flop

Some time ago, these columns said that black smoke would have appeared in the first phase. On the other hand, it is nothing new that in the last tenders awarded, the last of the Sky domain and the first “of the Dazn Tim era”, it has always had to be this way fall back on private negotiations; This is because the Serie A league’s request and the broadcasters’ offers never met. In particular, on the occasion of the current tender, in which the managers of the 20 Serie A clubs have asked for 1.15 billion euros per season for the transfer of the rights to the championship.

This time however The flop was thunderousand the gap between supply and demand – which was kept secret – would have resulted in a gap of over 500 million euros.

The package, which was heavily promoted by CEO Luigi De Siervo, provides for this Saturday night’s game will be broadcast exclusively by a single operator. Mediaset’s interest in the package had grown rapidly and talks about a return to free-to-air football began immediately. However, what De Siervo avoided specifying is that the minimum amount requested by the presidents was 180 million euros, a prohibitive figure for Mediaset. Because of this, nothing was done in the first phase either, and Amazon was still at the door ready to enter the private negotiation phase.

As for example, Il Fatto Quotidiano sums it up: “Series A, increasingly on the gas barrel, has attempted to predict the timing of the auction for the 2024-27 triennium (…) after a series of studies had led to the sale being possible not just for a three-year period, but for a four- or five-year period and after the presentation , to encourage buyers, about 24 different game packs; And do you know what happened after all this?» asks the article.

«It happened that half of the potentially interested buyers, namely Rai, Amazon and Paramount, left without even attending; And that the other half, namely Dazn, Sky and Mediaset wrote in a sealed envelope Numbers so low they baffle Presidents who had set the auction basis at one billion and 150 million. Overall, the offer was just over 600 million, just over half the minimum amount set, i.e. on par with the French league Ligue 1, bottom of the top five European leagues».

The Lega commission, which is the same as in the last call, with the addition of Atalanta CEO Luca Percassi – and therefore made up of De Laurentiis, Claudio Lotito, Udinese Campoccia vice-president and Inter’s lawyer Capellini – thus goes expected to close the operation in the second phase of the tender, but, never like this year, the feelings are negative.

Dazn has reiterated its firm will to continue playing a leading role, but for its part can no longer count on the economic (340 million) and infrastructural support of Tim, who in the 2021-2024 triennium played the role of guarantor of supporting the skeptical presidents of the Convince “streaming project” and get unanimous support for Dazn. Not to mention Skywho can’t and won’t come anywhere near the numbers required by the league (and who can blame him).

Series A Channel

Hence the idea of ​​changing the cards on the table and setting up the Series A channel. This situation would certainly have pleased Paolo Dal Pino, former president of the Serie A league, who two years ago sought an agreement with funds from “private equity” to create the private channel: 1.7 billion immediately for 10% of the media company, plus 1.2 billion three year guarantee. Staggering numbers given the latest offers, but several presidents have stalled the negotiations by threatening to “sell Series A to foreigners”.

Now that Sky and Dazn have both lowered their offers, it seems the case for De Laurentiis – who spoke of low offers “even less” than the leaked 600million that’s exactly the right way to increase the economic value of Series A. The problem is that there is little clarity about “who” and “how” should carry the dedicated channel.

Perhaps many do not know that as part of the tender for the three-year period 2018-2021, the Serie A league decided to sign the contract with the Spanish company Mediapro, for the modest sum of almost one billion euros – more than 100 million euros – brought in less than Dazn paid a few years later – it had secured the exclusive rights to Serie A with the Creation of the famous private channel.

Barely a month later, however, the presidents withdrew their steps, as Mediapro had failed to make payments needed to cover the guarantees provided for in the agreement. It all ended with a lawsuit which then earned Serie A 52 million euros in compensation. That’s why most presidents are still unconvinced by the idea, as are many fans. On the other hand, there is still little clarity about this phantom project:

when the third phase of the negotiations is reached, ie the one that concerns the private channel, Who will be the investor?

The league’s press release mentions six issues, but nothing is known about them. But despite the skepticism about this solution, this path no longer seems so unlikely. There are actually two scenarios: or Sky and Dazn will find an agreement with the Lega di Serie A and it will be a very complex negotiation, or you get to the third phase, in which the Presidents will advance the commercial broadcasting project. And here, in the case of the creation of the Lega channel, the rights have a term of 10 years.

Surely those who thought that Serie A was recovering this year “only” because of the Italians’ European results need to change their minds and understand how structurally our championship is in trouble. FIGC President Gabriele Gravina also admitted: “It is clear that the offer must also be in direct proportion to the quality of the product that is put on the market. we all thought Possibly we were a bit mistakenthat the results of the Italian teams would appeal».

«But we have to ask ourselves the question made in Italythat Italy has, because it has a strength engraved in history – Gravina continued – And whether the quality of the product we offer is correct. We still have to go into that a reflection on a much larger and more complex project». It hasn’t happened to us very often lately, but we agree with the President. The problem is that these are “questions” and “considerations” that are not trivial.