Italy’s Serie A League has sold its 2018-21 television rights to Spanish media enterprise Mediapro for €1,050,001,000.
The new deal leaves Sky Italia and Berlusconi’s Mediaset empty-handed. The amount Mediaporo offered exceeds the 1.05 billion-euro minimum threshold set for the deal with just €1,000.00. The league will now notify the Italian antitrust authority of its decision before it can proceed with officially assigning the rights.
In a reaction, Sky Italia has called upon the Serie A League to reject Mediapro’s offer for its TV rights on the grounds that the Spanish firm will not act as an actual broadcaster.
“Sky warns Lega Serie A League not to assign its TV rights to Mediapro,” the Sky statement said.
“The Spanish media group, despite having presented an offer exclusively for ‘independent intermediaries’, would not operate as such but rather as a communications operator.
“For this reason, Sky asks the League to consider Mediapro’s offer unacceptable, stop negotiations with them and exclude them from the running.”
It is believed that Mediapro plans to help Serie A launch its own channels, taking care of scheduling and editorial matters. It has a similar arrangement with BeIN Sports, which entrusts Mediapro to operate its line-up of channels in Spain.
The Serie A auction was postponed to February after Sky and Mediaset failed to meet Serie A’s demands of €1.05bn last summer.
