Serie A Media Company Deal May Be Called Off

Serie A could rule out 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 $2 billion deal needed approval from 14 of the 20 teams in the Italian soccer league to go through, and seven clubs banded together to block the sale.

“The term sheet submitted to the clubs belonging to the league has not reached a qualified consensus needed for the approval…as things stand, this development opportunity is not viable anymore,” the clubs wrote in a letter to Serie A president Paolo Dal Pino.

The deal had already been on tenuous ground, with the consortium reportedly threatening to pull out earlier this month. The clubs that blocked the sale said that they will still consider talks with “financial institutions” for presumably another private equity agreement.

As for media rights to broadcast the league’s matches, British sports streaming subscription service DAZN appears to lead that race after Amazon dropped out last month. DAZN shared rights with SKY — a unit of U.S.-based Comcast — for the last three years.

DAZN’s latest bid was worth roughly $1.02 billion, but Serie A could raise more by combining the bid with an additional offer from SKY to broadcast a handful of matches that wouldn’t be exclusive to DAZN.