A €7.2 million ($8.40 million) fine incurred by sports subscription streaming service DAZN in mid-2023, linked to a domestic coverage deal for Italian soccer's top-tier Serie A, has been halved by the country's competition authority.
The fine has been reduced by the AGCM body from €7.2 million to €3.6 million, while Telecom Italia's (TIM) €760,000 fine has not been reduced.
The fines were originally handed out following an investigation by the AGCM into TIM’s three-year deal with DAZN to exclusively distribute its coverage of Serie A after the streaming service landed the bulk of domestic live rights in 2021.
The tie-up prompted a backlash from some operators in Italy, with pay-TV broadcaster Sky Italia filing an appeal with the AGCM, claiming the deal was “illegitimate” and strengthened TIM’s already dominant position in the broadband market.
At that point, TIM was also the league's title sponsor.
The AGCM then opened an investigation looking to ascertain whether the agreement restricted competition from other telecom operators - and ended up finding that the original agreement granted exclusivity in favor of TIM, removing the possibility of DAZN striking partnerships with the telco’s competitors.
It added that the deal could have had harmful effects on the competitive dynamics of the connectivity services markets and the retail sale of pay-TV services.
Now, however, DAZN's financial punishment has been halved, after a court found issues with the ACGM investigation and in its rationale behind the fine (issued last June).
The Council of State also reportedly found there was insufficient evidence to lay responsibility for the antitrust actions at DAZN Media Services' door, with this new finding having led to the revised fine being handed out.
The distribution deal between DAZN and TIM was made shortly after DAZN secured rights to most Serie A fixtures in 2021 in a €2.5 billion deal that saw it hold exclusive rights to seven matches per match week, and co-exclusive rights to the other three matches, for the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle.
The remaining three matches were shared with Sky Italia in a deal worth €262.5 million over three seasons.
Now, for the ongoing 2024-25 to 2028-29 domestic rights cycle, DAZN covers every Serie A game live, with Sky showing three per matchday. The deal to that effect is worth €1 billion overall.
The TimVision over-the-top platform run by TIM then struck a similar wide-ranging distribution deal with DAZN for this cycle too, meaning it can show all 10 weekly matches.
At the time of its original decision, the AGCM said the DAZN-TIM deal resulted in TIM marketing "a bundle offer not replicable by its competitors, including the TimVision and DAZN contents and the connectivity service.
“Furthermore, it was an offer likely to deprive TIM’s competitors, active in the electronic communications markets, of the possibility of associating particularly valuable content to their own connectivity services, such as the rights to watch Serie A matches for the three years 2021-2024, limiting the ability to exercise competitive pressure against TIM itself.”
