Italian soccer's top-tier Lega Serie A could potentially sell a stake in its overseas media rights business, it has been reported.
The league has made overtures to private equity firms and is now assessing levels of interest, according to Bloomberg.
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The report states that the discussions are still at an early stage, and that a deal between the 20-team league and an investment firm is not guaranteed.
Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) has approached Serie A for comment.
Serie A first looked to sell a stake in its media rights business to an outside consortium – comprised of CVC Capital Partners, Advent International, and Italian fund FSI – in late 2020 and early 2021, only for a significant number of the league's clubs to rebel against that option. That tie-up would, according to reports at the time, have been worth €1.7 billion ($2 billion at that point) to the league.
It then reportedly held similar conversations with potential investors in 2023, but those once again did not result in any deal being struck.
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By GlobalDataIn terms of other European leagues, CVC is already an investor in Spain's top-tier LaLiga, as well as in the media rights business of France's Ligue 1. That deal, finalized in early 2022, provided Ligue 1 with a financial boost of €1.5 billion.
In Germany, meanwhile, the Bundesliga has been looking for some time now to secure outside investment, only for the concept to repeatedly be turned down by its clubs (and, in particular, most sets of supporters in that country).
The Bundesliga's last significant effort to that effect collapsed in February of last year.
These competitions all lag behind England's Premier League in terms of media rights revenues, and are, therefore, all looking for other ways in which to bring in capital.
Serie A has a target, according to reports, of tripling its overseas media rights revenues from the last cycle (2021-24) by 2030. Across those three seasons, the league's total overseas media rights fees reportedly came to €657 million – for the Premier League, meanwhile, overseas rights for the 2022-25 cycle came to £5.3 billion (currently, the equivalent of €6.2 billion.
In terms of Serie A media rights, earlier this month it emerged that the Italian government is 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).
For overseas Serie A media rights, meanwhile, while there is no legislation in place on selling rights to a single buyer, up until three years ago there was a time limit on the rights cycles of three seasons, meaning the league was not able to go longer than three years without having to re-tender in any territory.
However, changes to that rule were then approved in mid-2022, and the time limits were removed.
The league anticipated, at the time, that this removal would lead to an uptick in rights fee valuations across key markets, such as the Middle East and the US.
