Serie A: Sky and Mediaset to share 2015-2018 TV rights for €954m annually

Sky Italia and Mediaset have acquired the domestic TV rights for Serie A for 2015 through 2018 for a total of €945m per year, announced Lega Serie A, the professional football league that manages the first Italian division, on 26/06/2014.

This sum is €133m less than the €1.078bn expected, yet €79.5m greater (+9.2%) than the cost of domestic rights for the 2013-14 season (€865.5m). Two packages were not sold -- those for digital rights and additional content -- and other packages, including international rights and highlights of league fixtures, will be auctioned at a later date.

The television group Sky Italia bought package A, which includes satellite broadcasting of the games played by the eight best Italian teams (including Juventus, Inter Milan, Milan AC, SSC Napoli and AS Roma) and package D, which includes exclusive broadcasting of the games of the other 12 teams in the league. Sky has therefore bought the rights for all 380 Serie A league games for €572m (compared to €561m per year for 2012-15, a 2% increase).

Mediaset, Silvio Berlusconi's Italian free- and pay-TV broadcasting…