After 28 years, Italian football on pay TV changes masters. Dazn has won the domestic rights of Serie A 2021-24: seven exclusive matches and three co-exclusive for 840 million. From 1993 (the year of the start of advances and postponements live for a fee) to this championship, it was always Tele + then became Sky to dominate the scene. Satellite TV had always had an adventure companion: Stream, Mediaset or Dazn. But always from a clear majority position.
The balance of power has changed from today. The British streaming platform becomes the leader thanks to an offer of 840 million per season. Dazn got 16 votes in today’s League assembly. The group that has always voted for Dazn – made up of Juventus, Inter, Naples, Lazio, Fiorentina, Atalanta, Verona, Udinese, Parma and Milan – has won decisive consensus as the days go by. Turin has been joined by Rome, Bologna, Spezia, Cagliari and Benevento today. The quorum was set at 14, it was exceeded by two preferences. Genoa, Sampdoria, Crotone and Sassuolo remained against. On the other hand, package 2 with three co-exclusive games was not awarded to Sky for 70 million. The League wants to reformulate it and put it back on sale to get 150 million.
Now it is likely that there will be a legal queue, as often happens with the TV rights auctions of Serie A. Sky, which had already protested because its offer (750 million on packages per platform) was never put to the vote since the Lega’s lawyers considered it inadmissible because ‘conditioned’ by the expression of interest in the Serie A channel, it could appeal for another reason. According to the MF-Dow Jones agency, the Santa Giulia TV could sue because, in the last meeting, a consultant called by the League, during his report, had spoken in no uncertain terms about the “Dazn-Tim proposal”. This would represent an alteration of the ban because Tim’s support for Dazn was not declared in the envelopes, but only announced later.