Serie A also on Tim until 2029. To the great “pax” of football TV rights sanctioned last autumn, which plans to leave the situation substantially unchanged for the next 5 seasons – that is, all the matches broadcast by Dazn, now the official partner of Serie A, and 3 co-exclusively on Sky – the extension of the agreement between Dazn and TimVision is now added: TimVision customers will also be able to continue to watch championship matches.
This is the renewal of a commercial agreement already in place in recent years. Although, thinking about how this partnership was born, it’s really little more than a sop to the parties involved. Originally, in fact, it can be said that Tim was the true director – first hidden, then overt – of Dazn’s climb to the TV rights of Serie A: in fact, the telephone giant was behind Dazn in 2021, when the OTT, thanks to the technological and financial coverage behind it, it managed to oust Sky for the first time with a pharaonic offer of 840 million euros per year. Of these, around 340 should have been placed by Tim, which thus guaranteed itself an exclusive distribution right in the telecommunications sector. The idea was to conquer the telephony market and digitalize the country thanks to football. Things then went very differently: someone in Tim had miscalculated, subscriptions fell well short of forecasts, also thanks to the initial disservices that ruined its image, and the contract was also rejected by the Antitrust. The operation turned out to be a bloodbath for the company, which after losing about half a billion decided to exit prematurely, maintaining simple co-exclusivity at much lower figures, and leaving Dazn with the burden of bearing costs alone that are no longer sustainable. Hence the repeated price increases and revisions of conditions to the detriment of consumers, to try to make up for the absence of Tim’s contribution and reduce losses.
That is the past anyway. The future sees Dazn having relaunched in style, securing the rights to Serie A until 2029, with a lower but still notable offer: 700 million a year, plus a series of bonuses upon achieving certain objectives shared with the League Football on revenues and season tickets. To these must then be added the approximately 200 million guaranteed by Sky to broadcast the usual 3 exclusive matches plus highlights, for a total of at least 900 million, the figure the presidents were satisfied with. Therefore from August and for the next five seasons the championship will still be seen entirely in streaming. Today’s announcement completes the picture and gives a positive answer to those who were wondering if they could continue to take advantage of the Tim Vision subscription: the championship will also be visible through this platform, but we need to see at what prices (usually they have always been a little more advantageous than those of Dazn). It should also be noted that in the meantime Mediaset Infinity (included in the Tim Vision package) has lost the streaming rights to the Champions League, which will all be exclusively on Sky and Amazon; therefore the offer will be a little less attractive because it will no longer allow you to watch the championship and cups with a single subscription as in the past.
In short, a downward agreement, which however ultimately satisfies everyone. For Dazn, which made a significant effort to purchase the rights, it still means help, however small (we are talking about a figure of less than 50 million euros) to break even and repay the investment. For Tim it means keeping a foot in the ball, even if it’s certainly not what the company’s top management dreamed of. As for the fans, it is still an additional option for watching football on TV.
Twitter: @lVendemiale
2024-03-25 15:09:15
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