Calcio Serie A Table

[Ariel Wascom]

Howevernot all Serie A clubs are happy with the deal. Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, in particular, expressed his frustration at Serie A rejecting the chance to become a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business.

Because when I sell a package in which I find cinema, Champions League, Italian football, TV series and entertainment, or DAZN which sells Italian football and other sports, I will never understand the true value of Italian football. My teammates in the league love to be passively operational in the system. I, who have never played passively, hate operating in this way.

Serie A has explored the creation of a DTC service that would be made available via pay-TV providers and as a standalone subscription to customers, but Torino chairman and Cairo Communications owner Urbano Cairo told Italian reporters that the numbers did not add up at this time.

DAZN and Sky will continue as broadcast partners but it has been a stop-start process to get to this point. Notably, June saw Serie A enter private negotiations after initial bids were deemed too low, before delaying any decision until October.

De Siervo had said last month that Serie A was ready to roll out its own streaming service to show live matches should broadcasters fail to table an acceptable offer. If this was brinkmanship then it did not achieve its negotiating aims.

That said, the in-house DTC option was not necessary given the broad consensus the new deal has received. Considering the macro trends in the broadcast market at the moment, achieving a deal on the same level, with the potential for a revenue share top up, could also be a viewed as a minor victory.

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