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Business of TV Sport
Sportel Monaco 2011

Serie A drops prices for new-media rights in fresh tender

Italian football’s top division, Serie A, this week published a fresh invitation to tender for its new-media rights and ancillary rights, after having failed to close deals at the original tender prices published in March.
The league is offering non-exclusive packages of rights for mobile phones and the internet, as well as late-night television highlights, and radio highlights, for local and national stations for the next two seasons, 2010-2011 to 2011-2012.

The reserve price for mobile rights has dropped from €8.1 million ($10 million) per season to just over €7 million per season and for late-night television highlights, for national broadcasters like Rai and Mediaset, from €1.75 million per season to €1.38 million per season. The prices of the other packages are unchanged. These are: internet highlights (€455,000 per season); national radio highlights (€1 million per season); and local television highlights (from €20,000 per season to €60,000 per season, depending on the region and reach of operator).

The football league, Lega Calcio, has sold the international media rights to the Coppa Italia for the next two seasons to Marco Bianchi’s B4 agency. The IMG agency also bid. The league did not disclose a price but B4 is thought to be paying around €4 million per season. B4 acquired the rights in the last deal, for the seasons 2008-09 and 2009-10, for around €3 million per season.