DAZN Gets Help in Serie A Bidding War

Negotiations for Serie A broadcast rights may be coming to a close as DAZN receives reinforcements.

The British streaming company has an agreement with Telecom Italia — the largest phone carrier in Italy — that would back its $1.02 billion bid by 40% annually, per Bloomberg.

In addition to payments of $414 million per year, Telecom would also provide distribution and technological support in the deal.

DAZN is currently competing against Sky, a subsidiary of Comcast, for broadcast rights to the Italian soccer league’s next three seasons. Amazon dropped out of the race last month.

The financial support from Telecom is huge because DAZN lost nearly $2 billion last year, forcing the company to scale back its U.S. and Latin America ambitions.

“DAZN is hanging on to Germany and Italy as key markets and in both it is trying to carve out a competitive position,” said Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis. 

Serie A was set to bring in $2 billion from the sale of 10% of its new media company to a private equity consortium including CVC Capital Partners, Advent International and Italian fund FSI.

The deal could be off the table as it needed approval from 14 of the 20 teams in the league to go through, and seven clubs banded together to block the sale.