For the 2021 - 2024 Serie A TV rights, the De Laurentiis plan hypothesis comes forward that would guarantee all clubs much more revenue. Here's what we're talking about
The new Serie A season is ready to go again: the 2020-2021 championship kickoff has been set for the weekend of September 19-20. This is the third and last year of the Sky-DAZN pairing for soccer on TV: from the 2021-2022 season everything could change. In these last months, in fact, many presidents of Serie A have moved to revolutionize soccer on TV as we have seen it so far.
One of the most active is the president of Napoli De Laurentiis. As we already reported a few weeks ago, the patron of the partenopei presented his own plan to all the other Serie A clubs that involves the creation of a media company by the League that would guarantee much more revenue for the teams. Over three years, TV rights could generate almost 3 billion euros for the entire League, compared to the billion now. A substantial increase that would allow the clubs to have more resources at their disposal to make Serie A more and more attractive.
Mainly for this reason, De Laurentiis' plan is receiving the support of an increasing number of teams, ready to say goodbye to the Sky-DAZN duopoly and open the doors to new subjects that could also increase the number of soccer subscribers on TV.
Series A TV rights 2021 - 2024, what is the "De Laurentiis Plan"
Creation of a media company of the Serie A League with the help of the banks that are partners in the project to independently manage the TV rights of the championship, with the in-house production of the matches. This is, in short, the plan that De Laurentiis has in mind for the relaunch of Italian soccer and for the sale of TV rights of the Serie A for the three-year period 2021 - 2024.
The plan of the president of Naples is very similar to that of the League itself, which for the next three championships would like to have greater autonomy and increase revenues. The project of the Lega di Serie A always foresees the constitution of a media company, with the support, however, of investment funds that would provide the initial resources and would receive in exchange some shares of the new company.
De Laurentiis does not want to involve investment funds, but banks and has also provided a table with the expenses and possible revenues for the entire championship. To start and to form the media company there would need to be 250 million euros, with expected revenues for the first year exceeding 2.5 billion euros, thanks to the subscription of 4 million season tickets. In the third year, subscriptions would become more than 5 million with revenues close to 3 billion and expenses of 350 million euros.
TV rights Serie A 2021 - 2024: what changes for users
What would change for fans who want to watch soccer on TV with the De Laurentiis plan for the TV rights of the Serie A? Many things. De Laurentiis' goal is to increase the number of platforms and channels that broadcast Serie A. Each individual broadcaster can buy from the Serie A League the rights to broadcast the matches and resell the monthly subscription to users at an agreed price. We are talking about 30 or 36 euros per month. This should break the Sky-DAZN duopoly and allow platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video to also offer their customers soccer on TV. In France, for example, Netflix has secured exclusive rights to Ligue 1 (the top French league), the Champions League and the Europa League.
The next dates
The De Laurentiis plan, despite the interest of many clubs, is not the most likely option at the moment. The Lega di Serie A intends to first listen to the offers of the various broadcasters and evaluate them carefully. If they do not live up to expectations, the League is ready to launch the creation of the media company, with or without the help of private equity funds.