Italian men's soccer's top-tier Serie A is today (June 17) launching a tender process covering betting streaming and data rights for the next four seasons, through the release of a request for proposals (RFP).
Along with the 20-team league, the tender includes the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana knockout competitions, with the Supercoppa now a four-team tournament, between the 2025-26 and 2028-29 campaigns.
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The deadline for submissions is June 30 at 1pm Central European Time. The official RFP documents are available to entities who contact ugo.scicchitano@legaseriea.it.
In total, five packages are on offer, in addition to certain combinations which can also be bid for. Proposals can be made for multiple packages, and the Italian soccer league has said that following the proposal deadline, it will either "evaluate immediate rights awarding or enter into direct negotiations with one or more parties."
The packages are as follows:
- A – International sports betting package
- B – Sports betting package (Italy)
- C – Media data package
- D – Sports betting tracking data package
- E – Media tracking data package
There are then three combinations that can be bid for – the sports betting package (a combination of A and B); the sports betting package plus (a combination of A, B, and D); and the media data package plus (a combination of C and E).
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By GlobalDataThe last holder of these rights was Stats Perform, the international sports and data technology provider, for the cycle running between 2021-22 and 2023-24.
An intended extension to that tie-up – following a tender for these same rights, issued in mid-2023 – eventually collapsed, and indeed the two bodies are still engaged in legal wrangling after Serie A took Stats Perform to court earlier this year.
Serie A had achieved a 45% increase in the value of its betting rights through the deal with Stats Perform compared to its prior agreement with international sports and entertainment agency IMG.
IMG had held betting rights to Serie A under an international media rights deal for the 2018-19 to 2020-21 cycle that was worth €361 million ($395 million) per annum.
In terms of Serie A rights tenders, the Italian government is currently considering removing legislation that prevents the league from selling its domestic broadcast rights to any single buyer.
If the legislation – overall, known as the Melandri Law – is altered, to enable one sole buyer of Serie A domestic rights, this would mark a major change in how Serie A can sell its media rights (although the next tender process for the league is unlikely to get underway until 2028, for the 2029-30 campaign).
The Melandri Law (including the 'no single buyer' rule) has been in place since 2008, when the Italian government of the time brought it in to avoid creating any one single dominant player in the Italian broadcast market.
