Serie A extends with TNT Sports in UK through 2026-27 - Sportcal

Serie A extends with TNT Sports in UK through 2026-27 – Sportcal

Posted by author July 23, 2024 Sports

Roma’s Chris Smalling is one of several English players in Serie A. (Will Russell/Getty Images)

Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A has extended its media rights tie-up in the UK and Ireland with pay-TV’s TNT Sports through 2026-27.

This marks the second major Serie A rights deal revealed in the last week, following confirmation of a renewal in the US with existing partner CBS Sports (in that case, running for two seasons).

Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) has learned Serie A and TNT’s extension will run for three seasons.

TNT Sports (owned by Warner Bros. Discovery) will not cover all 380 games per season through this deal, but instead will show a selection of matches – during the last cycle, it covered five fixtures each game week.

The broadcaster (formerly BT Sport) also showed Serie A action, across the UK and Ireland, during the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle. Free-to-air broadcaster ITV showed a selection of matches at the tail-end of the season.

The value of the original Serie A-BT Sport deal has been estimated by GlobalData Sport as around $4.75 million per season.

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Before that tie-up came into effect, the Premier Sports broadcaster held rights.

British players currently plying their trade at Serie A clubs include Tammy Abraham and Chris Smalling at Roma, Fikayo Tomori and Ruben Loftus-Cheek at AC Milan, and Scotland’s Lewis Ferguson at Bologna.

Serie A’s international rights tenders have been taking place since mid-2023, with the league having substantially changed its method for selling media rights across the next cycle.

Previously, the vast majority of rights were held by the Infront agency. Now, the league is carrying out a sizeable proportion of negotiations, in various markets, directly with broadcasters (although Infront is distributing rights across Asia-Pacific).

This process is being headed up by Anna Guarnerio, who joined the league in a senior media rights role in December after spending 25 years at Infront Italy.

In mid-June, a three-year deal was struck across the DACH countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) with global sports streaming service DAZN.

During the last cycle, the Italian league reportedly brought in just over $650 million across the three seasons in total from overseas broadcast rights.

Domestically, the league will be covered by DAZN and pay-TV’s Sky Italia for the next five seasons.

TNT Sports, meanwhile, will also be covering – in terms of soccer – action from the English Premier League next season, as well as the UEFA Champions League pan-European competition.

In February, it was also confirmed as the main rights-holder for the next set of domestic FA Cup (knockout competition) rights, between 2025-26 and the end of 2028-29.