Discovery Communications’ Eurosport is bidding for Italian soccer TV rights, reports Bloomberg.
Traditionally, Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset and Sky Italia are the among bidders for the rights to Serie A, Italy’s top-flight football league, between 2015 and 2018. But this time, Eurosport is also joining the auction of the various broadcast rights. According to Italian press, Fox is also `among the bidders – although Fox Sports and Sky Italia are both Murdoch companies.
According to local media, Eurosport has submitted a bid for package D, which includes 132 matches involving 12 Serie A teams with a starting price of EUR 705 million for the three seasons. The auction for the Serie A rights is managed by Infront Italy SRL and includes four main TV-rights packages, with a total starting price of EUR 2.88 billion.
Early May the Serie A football clubs have signed a contract with Swiss-based agency Infront that guarantees them at least EUR6 billion in income from television rights for the next six seasons.
The company has now put together in number of packages. internationally, Al jazeera’s BeIn Sports is also reportedly interested in acquiring these rights.
