Serie A football could make its free-to-air return on TV thanks to an initiative by RAI and Mediasetand at the same time compete a bit with DAZN.
The idea is to convince the Lega Calcio to allow the transmission of some matches on digital terrestrialcompletely unencrypted and therefore without the need for any subscription.
As reported by Milano Finanza, the two main Italian television broadcasters put forward the proposal also asking for the support of the Meloni government as a mediator.
The proposal is simple, allow certain Serie A matches to be broadcast unencrypted on RAI or Mediaset networks for the three-year period 2024-2027, and therefore starting from the 2024/2025 season, following the renegotiation of TV rights.
The goal is to ensure greater competition and possibly make sure that DAZN can in the future offer more convenient contractual conditions for the user.
Mediaset on its own is ready to make an investment of 200 million euros, but the cost of individual matches is still too high to be compensated solely with advertising revenues. The CEO of the company Pier Silvio Berlusconi explained the situation. The cost of a single match is around 3 million euros, impossible to equalize with advertising revenues alone. Furthermore, not all matches have the same attractiveness and the same time, which would further reduce advertising revenues compared to the “Prime Time” of a big evening match.
However, the road that RAI and Mediaset would like to take is steeply uphill. And it was the President of Serie A Lorenzo Casini who put a first obstacle, who declared: “It’s the first time I’ve heard it as a hypothesis. We know that some leagues have experienced a free-to-air game with controversial results. This hypothesis has not been discussed today, at the moment thanks to a very in-depth work by the offices of the League and the CEO, the starting framework is being defined to arrive at the best strategy“.
On the other hand more and more Italians are angry about the service offered by DAZN which often suffers from instability during peak times. Just take a look on the social channels to read the numerous protest messages, which increasingly push users to seek alternative and illegal solutions. To aggravate this situation there were the two increases on the short-distance season ticket, the first last summer (although already in force during the previous season), and the second in January 2023 which brought the cost of the subscription to 40 euros per month.
Source: Football and Finance
