Serie A: Discovery Communications and TIMvision interested in the TV rights for the 2018-2021 cycle

"At the last auction of TV rights to the Serie A TIM, we submitted an offer for one of the packages. This is a subject that interests us," said Luigi Filippo Ecuba the managing director for sports, for Southern Europe, of Discovery Communications since 12/07/2016, to the specialised Italian website ItaliaOggi on 20/12/2016.

This confirms the interest of the US audiovisual conglomerate, which owns the Eurosport pay-TV channels and the free-TV channel Nove TV (former Deejay TV) in Italy, regarding the next tender for the domestic audiovisual rights to the Serie A TIM, to be launched in 2017. Eurosport has already acquired a portion of the domestic TV rights to the Bundesliga for the 2017-2021 cycle (see below).

Other interested groups include of Sky Italia, who currently jointly hold the domestic TV rights to the Serie A alongside Mediaset, and the telecom operator Telecom Italia, via its TIMvision platform. The latter, TIMvision, an TV on-demand and live platform, will become its own separate company following the agreement of the board of the Italian group on 19/12/2016, which "will…