The origins
Until 1980, the subject of free-to-air and encrypted television rights was virtually unknown in Italy, so football clubs derived most of their earnings from the sale of match tickets. In the Italian model, the phrase football television rights for sale had no relevance, as it was a legal institution specific to the football model of the United Kingdom and the United States, and therefore fundamentally foreign to the Italian football system.
Any private television station was free to film any match on Italian soil, and nothing could prevent camera operators from accessing stadiums. Access to sports facilities was regulated by the municipalities: due to the spirit of sportsmanship, the custom of allowing any journalist and television editorial team to enter the press box had become consolidated, often without even asking for the price of the ticket. [1]
The first local private broadcasters, born during the seventies, did not take advantage of this opportunity. Partly it depended on organizational reasons and partly on the fact that advertising was not yet a large and structured instrument of profit. Rai based its advertising revenue almost exclusively on Carosello : this situation ended in 1977. Since 1960, it has broadcast on Sundays at 7:00pm the delayed commentary of a Serie A match, without the payment of television rights or without this generating financial transactions of a commercial nature.
Furthermore, for reasons of tradition, the matches were all concentrated on Sunday afternoons, and in this regard, popular songs also flourished. This situation made the general picture even more difficult for the commercialization of television rights.
In the years of stadium football, Rai had a regulation that provided for the live broadcasting of Italian championship matches throughout the country, with the exception of the province of the team playing at home in order not to reduce the revenue from tickets sold at the stadium. The regulation had not been negotiated with the Lega Calcio. The Italian model was economically organized on the sole revenue from paying spectators and season ticket holders, and the entire economic capacity of the clubs was strongly proportional to the number of fans who physically went to the stadium.
TV rights up for sale
The legal institution of television rights for sale was imported into Italy in 1980, copying it from the Anglo-American model. This is attested by the resolutions and related contracts between Rai and Lega Calcio, which until that moment had no formal and legally connoted relationship.
The contract was based on the Lega Calcio, in exchange for a sum of 3 billion lire, granting Rai the right to install cameras in stadiums to film matches. In practice, this meant closing the gates of stadiums to cameramen from private television stations. The purpose of the agregen was for Rai, as a public body, to become a concessionaire of Lega Calcio, broadcasting football free of charge throughout Italy.
Arrival of pay TV
The first revolution that goes beyond the concept of football freely visible to all comes in 1993, with the agreements between Lega Calcio and Telepiù. In this case, the Italian legal system was inspired by the Anglo-Saxon legal institution of encrypted television rights. Furthermore, due to the split of the original institution of 1980, the figure of free-to-air television rights is separated. Thus, since 1993 there have been encrypted rights and FTA rights.
The emergence of FTA rights stems from the desire to limit television viewing of matches to season ticket holders only, with the sole aim of increasing revenue for football clubs. [2] The possibility of following the event on TV therefore clashes with the tradition of going to the stadium, a place often lacking in terms of safety. [3]
Despite the increase in television power, the presence of fans at the stadium continues, albeit with inevitable fluctuations, to maintain its fundamental role. [4]
The contract signed in 1993 between Lega Calcio and Telepiù established that for three seasons, from the 1993-1994 until 1995-1996 championship, TELE+2 channel would broadcast a match from the top Italian football championship, generally the late match at 8.30pm on Sunday, for each of the first 28 matchdays (in the last six rounds there was no such late match to ensure the regularity of the final phase of the tournament). The matches were visible via a decoder only to those who had a six-monthly or annual subscription. The contract allowed the pay TV to choose, at the start of the season, which match to broadcast in each of the first 28 matchdays, but respecting some constraints including a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 television broadcasts for each of the 18 teams and the impossibility of broadcasting, in the second half of the season, the same matches as the first half of the season (a constraint subsequently abolished with a subsequent renegotiation, in addition to an increase to 6 of the maximum number of television broadcasts for the big clubs). All the other matches of the championship could be broadcast, as in the past, only in exceptional cases and only in FTA by Rai (midweek recoveries of previously postponed matches and advances dictated by the teams' commitments in international competitions, as long as they did not coincide with the matches chosen by TELE+ at the start of the season, as well as the play-offs at the end of the championship). [5]
Telepiù exclusivity
In 1996, Telepiù inaugurated its satellite platform DStv (subsequently Telepiù Satellite, D+ and finally TELE+ Digital) and negotiated with Lega Calcio for almost total coverage of Serie A. For three seasons, from the 1996–1997 to the 1998-1999 championship, the new platform broadcast all Serie A matches and no longer just the postponed matches. It was possible to subscribe to the entire championship or just to the matches of a single team; furthermore, through the pay-per-view Palco, it was possible to purchase individual matches. Only the play-offs at the end of the championship, if played in a single match on neutral ground, remained outside the TELE+ offer; the rights for their live broadcast were ceded from time to time by the Lega.championship). [1]
The fight between TELE+ and Stream TV
From 1999 to 2000, subjective rights were introduced: it was no longer the Lega Calcio that negotiated with the broadcasters, but rather the individual football clubs, which reserved the right to independently manage the television rights for home matches. The football championship thus became the scene of competition between two satellite platforms: TELE + Digitale was opposed by Stream TV, owned by the Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch. For four seasons, from the 1999–2000 to the 2002-2003 championship, the tournament was in fact visible partly on TELE+ and partly on Stream. To follow even just their favourite team, fans had to subscribe to both platforms, which also used two different decoders (even though in the following years they made a single decoder available to subscribers, compatible with the encoding systems of both platforms). In the first two seasons, TELE+ had a slight advantage: 11 teams ("led" by the three historic big teams Juventus, Milan and Inter ) against Stream's 7 (led by the four rivals Roma, Lazio, Fiorentina and Parma who, together with the other three, formed the so-called "seven sisters" of the championship). In the 2001-2002 championship, the advantage narrowed: 10 teams for TELE+ and 8 for Stream. In the 2002-2003 championship, however, there was a draw, with 9 teams for each platform. In this last season, the system began to enter into crisis, with many smaller clubs that were slow to sell the rights to one or the other broadcaster, declaring themselves dissatisfied with the financial offers, even causing the start of the championships to be postponed. Regarding the play-offs, they were now included in the television rights of the entire championship (in relation to the teams involved), as they were now played in both the first and second rounds. [1]
The arrival of Sky and acquisition of Telepiù
The competition for football television rights was halted in 2003, with the acquisition of Telepiù by News Corporation, owner of Stream. Both platforms thus merged into a single platform, Sky Italia. The initial effect of the new monopoly situation, however, was that of even lower offers for the acquisition of rights, especially towards smaller clubs. To counter this, some of these clubs formed a consortium, contributing to the creation of Gioco Calcio, a new television channel managed by Lega Calcio itself. However, the illusion of competing with Sky did not last long, due to the economic weakness of the project: Gioco Calcio even rented four channels from Sky in order to operate. The 2003-2004 championship therefore began with 11 clubs remaining faithful to Sky and the other 7 opting for the League's TV. During the season, however, these clubs broke their contracts one after the other and switched to Sky, which ended the season by achieving its set objective of total coverage of Serie A. Gioco Calcio closed in June 2004, [6] not without leaving behind legal disputes. [7]
Satellite rights and Terrestrial rights
The 2004–2005 season, expanded from 18 to 20 teams, began with some hesitant clubs and some matches therefore remained without television coverage, but after a few days all found an agreement with Sky, which managed to establish a monopoly on the television rights of Serie A until the end of the first half of the season, in January 2005. [8] The beginning of the second half of the season saw the spread of digital terrestrial transmission technology. [9]
In Italy, the transition of the television signal from analogue to digital began in 1996 for satellite broadcasts (on the initiative of Telepiù) and was completed in 2005, when the process also began for terrestrial transmissions. On 3 January 2004, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Italian television, digital terrestrial was born, which accompanied analogue TV and then definitively replaced it starting from 2012. [10] In January 2005, two pay TV channels were created on digital terrestrial: Mediaset Premium and LA7 Cartapiù. The situation that arose in the world of television rights for Italian football was singular: due to the obligations to be respected with the Antitrust after the merger between TELE+ and Stream, the rights acquired by Sky were made valid only for satellite broadcasting, therefore the various football clubs could resell the rights for the same matches also to terrestrial pay TV channels.
Starting from the second half of the 2004-2005 championship, Sky maintained the exclusive broadcast rights for all Serie A matches via satellite, facing competition via the airwaves from Mediaset and LA7, which broadcast the same matches at much more convenient costs for users. It therefore started with 9 teams on Mediaset Premium and 8 on Cartapiù , while the remaining three did not cede the terrestrial rights. However, two of them did so during the tournament, bringing the number of teams under contract with Cartapiù to 10, while until the end of the season there remained 9 teams on Premium; furthermore, only one company, not ceding the terrestrial rights, left the total exclusivity of home matches to satellite TV.
In the 2005–2006 season, Mediaset and LA7 reached the point of covering, between them, the entire Serie A: 11 teams on Premium and 9 on Cartapiù. Sky, however, maintained the satellite exclusivity for the entire championship (apart from a couple of teams in the first few days) with the advantage of a single subscription: those who wanted to follow Serie A via digital terrestrial had to buy rechargeable cards for both Premium and Cartapiù, albeit at a more convenient total cost than the annual subscription to Sky.
Starting from the 2006–2007 season, the three pay TVs agreed on a rational division of the rights: Mediaset and LA7 acquired the exclusive rights from the various Serie A companies, then keeping only the terrestrial rights for themselves and reselling the satellite rights to Sky. In this way, Sky continued to ensure coverage of the entire championship on the satellite platform, while on digital terrestrial Mediaset Premium and Cartapiù divided the Serie A teams more or less equally: 10 teams each in the 2006-2007 and 2007–2008 seasons, 11 to Premium and 9 to Cartapiù in the 2008–2009 season. The agreements also included the identification, by both TVs, of 5 or 6 full teams: for each of these teams, the terrestrial broadcaster that had acquired the rights showed all the home games and away games against the other teams for which it had the rights, while the competitor was authorised to show the other away games as well. The full teams, whose all seasonal games could be followed on a single terrestrial operator, were 5 (out of 10 total) for each TV in the 2006–2007 season, 6 for each in the 2007–2008 season and 6 for Premium (out of 11 total) and 5 for Cartapiù (out of 9) in the 2008–2009 season. With this system, most of the matches, for the first time, were broadcast simultaneously on three different platforms.
In March 2009, the Cartapiù pay-per-view closed its doors to make way for Dahlia TV, which continued its activities. In the final part of the 2008–2009 season, the new platform continued to broadcast the Serie A matches of 9 teams, 5 of which were full-house, while Mediaset Premium maintained the remaining 11 teams, 6 of which were full-house. In the 2009–2010 season, Premium and Dahlia split the top division equally: each of the two terrestrial platforms offered the matches of 10 teams, 6 of which were full-house .
Starting from the 2010–2011 season, the centralised sale of Serie A rights came back into force, no longer dealing with individual clubs but directly with the Lega Serie A, as had happened until 1999. For the viewer, the only change was a different distribution of matches between the two terrestrial operators: while Sky continued to broadcast the entire league, Mediaset Premium broadcast the matches of 12 teams (with first choice rights for 10 of them) and Dahlia TV broadcast those of the remaining 8 (with second choice rights for 3 of them). The disparity both in the number of teams (Mediaset thus came to propose 324 matches out of a total of 380) and in their prestige should have theoretically been compensated by the fact that each of the two platforms was allowed to broadcast all the matches of the assigned teams, without any distinction between home and away: in practice Dahlia thought it wanted to become the TV of the minor teams, deciding to ensure wide television visibility to less important places especially at a local level, having the terrestrial exclusive of the direct clashes between these teams. However, things went differently and the sharp drop in subscriptions caused Dahlia TV to be liquidated and the consequent cessation of all activities on 25 February 2011. [11]
After the closure of Dahlia TV, starting from the last 12 days of the 2010-2011 championship, only two television operators remained to offer live Serie A: Sky via satellite and Mediaset Premium via air. Until 2015, all matches were broadcast on the satellite platform, while the terrestrial platform broadcast the matches involving 12 teams chosen at the beginning of the season (still covering 324 matches out of a total of 380). The 56 direct clashes between the remaining 8 teams were visible exclusively on Sky.
In 2015, a different division of television rights was introduced: Sky continued to broadcast the entire tournament, with exclusive rights to the images of 132 matches (with limited production accessory rights attached), while on Premium all the matches of 8 teams were broadcast live, for a total of 248 matches not exclusively but with exclusive rights to the accessory rights (cameras in the changing rooms, interviews at half-time, double limited production pitchside team, pre-match press conferences).
The entrance of DAZN
After the failure of two tenders with division of matches by platform and the termination of the contract with the independent intermediary Mediapro, Lega Serie A has assigned the product rights for the first time to Sky (266 matches per season exclusively live) and to Perform (114 matches per season exclusively live), which thus lands on the Italian market with the streaming service DAZN . More precisely, Sky, whose ownership has since passed from 21st Century Fox to Comcast, has purchased the possibility of broadcasting 7 matches per matchday (the Saturday advances at 3pm and 6pm, two Sunday matches at 3pm, the Sunday postponements at 6pm and 8.30pm and the Monday one at 8.30pm) while DAZN the remaining 3 per matchday (the Saturday advances at 8.30pm and Sunday at 12.30pm and one Sunday match at 3pm). It should be said that, as early as May 2018, Sky also began to operate on digital terrestrial with some of its channels, following an agreement with Mediaset Premium . On 15 July 2018, Mediaset Premium signed an agreement with the Perform group to be able to broadcast the channels of the DAZN platform on its network, and consequently also the matches offered by it. [12] [13]
On 20 September 2019, following a commercial agreement between Sky and DAZN, the linear channel DAZN 1 was activated, which broadcasts live the 3 Serie A matches for which the publishing group holds the rights (assisted, during midweek rounds, by the DAZN 1+ channel activated when necessary).
On 26 March 2021, Lega Serie A once again assigned the product rights to DAZN, which, unlike the previous three-year period, will hold the rights to broadcast the entire Serie A championship : the platform will exclusively broadcast 7 matches per round live (the Saturday advance matches at 3pm and 6pm, the Sunday matches at 3pm and the Sunday late matches at 6pm and 8.45pm), including all the big matches of the championship, while the remaining 3 (the Saturday advance match at 8.45pm, the Sunday match at 12.30pm and the Monday late match/Friday advance match at 8.45pm) will be broadcast in co-exclusive; the latter were assigned to Sky on 14 May 2021.
On October 23, 2023, after months of private negotiations, the agreements with Sky Italia and DAZN are renewed for the broadcast of the next 5 seasons (until the 2028–2029 season), for a total of 900 million euros. The agreement also provides for a gradual increase in revenue for each season, as well as the viewing of 4 big matches also on Sky. The division of the matches is the same as the previous three-year period, with all the matches (of which 266 are exclusive) broadcast on DAZN and the remaining 114 matches also broadcast by Sky, with the match broadcast on Sunday no longer being the 12:30 one, but the 18:00 one.
