The World Cup is back on Rai channels after the Russian 2018 interlude on Mediaset screens. And Amazon’s role in football on video is expanding. State TV and the e-commerce giant have purchased the rights to the competition from FIFA, which will take place from 21 November to 18 December next year in the emirate of the Gulf.
Rai will broadcast the matches of the B1 package: 28 first choice matches including semifinals and finals. In practice, the best match of every day. Amazon, for its paid streaming channel Amazon Video, bought the B2 package with the other 36 games, so more than one a day, but not the big-match, plus semifinals and final which will therefore also be visible in the pay version. According to rumors, Rai will pay around 130 million. Amazon about 60. Mediaset also entered the auction and sought an encore of the 2018 edition, but stopped at 155 million for all games. The overall evaluation takes into account the concrete hope of seeing Italy in the most followed sporting event in the world together with the Olympics, after the failure to qualify for the play-off with Sweden in 2017. The good start of Roberto Mancini’s national team in the group provides positive indications . This explains the difference in the evaluation of rights compared to the last World Cup for which Mediaset paid 80 million. The purchase of the Cologno Monzese TV took place after the shipwreck of the Azzurri at the time led by coach Gian Piero Ventura. But it was a good bet, rewarded by the ratings.
For Amazon it is the second step on the TV football market in Italy, after the investment of 80 million for the best 16 Wednesday games of the Champions League. The placement of the World Cup in the weeks leading up to Christmas was decisive for the American company, the hottest weeks for its main activity with the shipment of gift packs to put under the tree.