Sky, Dazn, Tim and Amazon subscriptions: the TV football challenge begins

All at the starting line. With the Champions League draw today, Thursday 29 August 2024, the TV football season, which is the first of the new cycle (of five years for Serie A and three years for the European cups), enters its climax, from which above all Sky and Dazn expect indications to understand the answer to their strategic choices: the bet on Serie A (and, doing the due proportions, on Serie B) for Dazn against the other bet made by the media company of Comcast on the European cups. Of course, by now it is increasingly clear: you need more than a subscription to enjoy all football on TV. Already the best Champions League match on Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video had brought attention to the subject. From this year, with the exclusivity of European cups in the belly of Sky, there is no alternative.

No official figures have ever been given for the latter operation, but rumours circulated in 2023, the year of allocation, indicated an outlay of around 660 million for the TV rights of the Champions League (185 matches out of 203 per season), Europa League and Conference League for 2024-27. An important commitment, but also consequent to the new Champions League formula: it will be played 11 months out of 12 and the matches will be a total of 47% more than in previous editions, with the number of teams participating in the final phase rising from 32 to 36, all in a single group. There will be eight Italian teams in Europe: five in the Champions League (Inter; Milan; Juventus; Atalanta and Bologna); two in the Europa League (Roma and Lazio) and one in the Conference (Fiorentina, however, tonight with the decisive in-or-out challenge against Puskás Akadémia). Therefore, there will be no more Champions League visible on Mediaset, which ended in June its three seasons made up of one match a week free to air on Canale 5 and a complete offer on Infinity (but in football it will be able to count on the rights of the Italian Cup). In the three European competitions - with Europa League and Conference League until last June also shared with Dazn - Sky will only have competition from Amazon, which for its Prime Video has won the best match of the Wednesday Champions League. Sky has also decided (as anticipated in Il Sole 24 Ore on 12 June) not to share the rights with other broadcasters, but also to exclude from free-to-air transmission, on its Tv8, the matches of the Italian teams, which will only be visible on pay-TV. An important choice to regain revenues and subscribers, therefore, also putting Premier League (until the 2027-28 season), Bundesliga (until the 2024-25 season), Serie C and 3 out of 10 Serie A matches per round (co-exclusive with Dazn) with at least 30 of the best 76 matches of the championship (Saturday evening at 8.45pm; the novelty of the Sunday match at 6pm and the Monday postponement at 8.45pm) on the table.

On Serie A the pivot will instead remain, until 2028-29, Dazn with all 10 matches per week in its offer. "Italy is a central country in Dazn's strategy. Thanks to solid results, it is making a fundamental contribution to the global growth of the group" which, moreover, "will reach profitability in 2024", said Shay Segev, CEO of Dazn Group, on 17 July at the presentation of the platform's new season. The investment needed for Dazn to secure the rights was 700 million a year (with the addition of a revenue sharing mechanism with the Lega Serie A when certain subscription thresholds were exceeded). And on this occasion there was not even the over 340 million per year that Tim had initially put on the plate in the last round.

A major, but necessary effort for Dazn after Sky's move on European cups: not having Serie A would have meant basically getting out of the Italian market. This was not the case. And the platform led in Italy by Stefano Azzi faces a new season in which it has also decided to proceed with rationalisations with a strategy focused on the promotion of matches with a new live-oriented logic, a new virtual studio and with a different use of the stadium resulting in less use of sidelines (something that has led to exits among journalists with a lot of union negotiations). In extremis, Dazn has also decided, with an endowment of 15 million, to bet, as it has done since 2018, on Serie B (whose rights it secured practically at the start of the championship). And for some time it has been pursuing the path of increasing the number of 'touchpoints': hence the agreement with Tivùsat as well as with Amazon Prime Video, in addition to the one with Timvision, Tim's own platform that is currently on the market with an offer of 24.99 euros per month (for the first three months and then 34.99 euros per month) including Dazn, discovery+ sports with the Eurosport channels, entertainment on Timvision, in addition to Disney+ and Infinity+.

This latest offer is part of a non-trivial range within which consumers are asked to choose. It starts at an equivalent of €29.92 per month (with Dazn's standard annual plan with prepayment, which enables the simultaneous viewing of two devices but only on the same internet line) for the entire Serie A, while for the cups the solution is Sky TV (Sky series and shows) + Sky Sport at €37.80 per month (with an 18-month tie-in). Sky also has Now, the group's Ott platform. In this case, the Sports pass requires payment of 14.99 euros per month with a minimum stay of 12 months or 24.99 euros per month with no tie-in. Amazon Prime Video requires EUR 49.90 per year. Badly counted, there are about 20 options to choose from for Italian football fans. Patience is required.