MediaPro to pay US$1.3b a year for Serie A TV rights

February 06, 2018 | 16:42

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ROME: The Italian league announced on Monday (Feb 5) that the domestic television rights for Serie A games for the period 2018 to 2021 have been sold to Spanish group MediaPro for €1.05 billion (US$1.3 billion) a year.

mediapro to pay us 13b a year for serie a tv rights

Gonzalo Higuain and Federico Bernardeschi of Juventus, Serie A champions in the last six seasons. (AFP/MARCO BERTORELLO)

"The offer of 1,050,001,000 euros, is superior to the minimum requested in the invitation to tender," Lega Serie A said in a statement, with MediaPro's offer enough for them to beat traditional broadcast partners Sky and Mediaset.

The annoucement comes after the Italian league rejected the offers made by Sky and Mediaset at the end of January, judging the total amount of €830 million to be insufficient.

The two groups currently share the domestic television rights, paying €945 million per year for the period 2015 to 2018.

Lega Serie A wanted at least €1.05 billion a year for the new deal, and MediaPro's offer goes €1,000 over that mark.

The international rights for Serie A were attributed in October to IMG and Rai, the Italian national public broadcaster, for a total of €371 million per year for the three years to 2021. That is double the previous amount.

According to an advisor to the league, the offer from MediaPro, who already hold the rights to the Spanish league, could be linked to a project to create a new television channel in partnership with the league itself.

The amount of the new offer compares to €1.16 billion a year in Germany, €1 billion in Spain and €726 million in France. However, it is way behind England's annual total of €1.95 billion.

Sky, however, reacted via a statement from their lawyers saying MediaPro's offer was "inadmissible" and demanding that negotiations with the Spanish group be interrupted.

AFP

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