Global sports OTT service DAZN has consolidated its position in France with the acquisition of exclusive broadcast rights to Italy’s elite soccer competitions, including its top-flight Serie A.
DAZN will showcase every Serie A fixture throughout the 2025-26 campaign, as well as the accompanying Coppa Italia knockout competition, and the Supercoppa Italiana super cup mini tournament.
Go deeper with GlobalData
France is the most-represented non-Italian nationality among Serie A players, with over half of the 20 teams in the league having at least one French player.
As such, a number of the French national team’s most prominent players compete in the division, including Inter Milan’s Marcus Thuram and Benjamin Pavard, AS Roma’s Manu Kone, and the Juventus trio of Khephren Thuram, Randal Kolo Muani, and Pierre Kalulu, meaning the league has in-built interest for French audiences.
Neighboring principalities Monaco and Andorra will also be covered by the deal, which extends DAZN’s Serie A rights coverage.
In recent years, Serie A has substantially changed its approach to finding broadcast partners for the next cycle. Previously, the Infront agency held the vast majority of rights, whereas now, the league is carrying out a significant proportion of negotiations, in various markets, directly with broadcasters.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataDAZN is already a domestic rights holder of Serie A, along with pay-TV network Sky Italia, in deals running through 2028-29.
In addition, the broadcaster recently picked up the rights to the competition in the UK and Ireland, and the US, in a major deal that also includes post-match highlights rights in every global territory outside of Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, and the MENA region.
DAZN replaces the broadcast arm of iconic French publication L’Equipe, which had been the Serie A rightsholder in the country since October 2024.
L'Equipe only aired two fixtures per Serie A gameweek in the 2024-25 campaign, with the DAZN deal as such representing an increase in the scope of coverage in the country.
In adding Serie A exclusivity to its portfolio in France, DAZN goes some way to ameliorating the end of its domestic Ligue 1 rights deal, which collapsed before the end of the 2024-25 campaign.
DAZN’s previous rights package, which included eight out of nine weekly fixtures, will now be offered by an in-house Ligue 1 channel, with the streamer securing carriage rights for the service on its platform.
The four-season carriage deal ensures that the league will remain distributed by DAZN on a non-exclusive basis.
DAZN has, however, suffered a further blow this week, as its carriage deal with pay-TV heavyweight Canal Plus's MyCanal service came to an end.
