Mediapro €1.6bn downpayment to retain Serie A rights
June 5, 2018
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spanish TV group Mediapro has made a downpayment of €1.6 billion as a financial guarantee to the Italian football league to retain the TV rights to Serie A football. The Italian teams have accepted the offer, approving Mediapro’s right to sell the TV rights as an intermediary.
So now the group looks likely to keep the football TV rights – just one week after it appeared to have lost them – although a final Court decision will be taken later on this week.
The financial guarantee is higher than the €1.05 billion sum to be paid per year by Mediapro between 2018 and 2021 for the rights. The main shareholder of Mediapro, the Chinese group Orient Hontai, made the downpayment certified by KPMG.
With the deposit, the relaunch of the auction for the football TV rights will be cancelled – required by Sky Italia, the other possible bidder- and now Mediapro will start the process to resell the transmissions to other operators.