Lega Serie A has transferred its North American television rights for the next two seasons to Paramount+/CBS Sports, extending its current contract.
Paramount/CBS has been broadcasting Serie A since taking over from ESPN in the summer of 2021, initially securing a three-year deal to show the Italian top league in both the U.S. and Canada. The original pact also included live rights to the Coppa Italia and Italian Super Cup, and the total three-year contract was valued at approximately $195 million, an increase over the pact with ESPN.
With nine of Serie A’s 20 clubs owned by North American companies – Milan, Inter, Parma, Fiorentina, Roma, Bologna, Atalanta, Venezia and Genoa – the league had been under pressure to secure new television rights deals for the 2024/25 season. It is unclear at this time whether the new two-year extension will see Paramount/CBS Sports pay more than the previous deal or if it will just be a continuation of the previous figure.
In the UK, TNT Sports, which has been broadcasting the league since 2021, holds the rights to broadcast Serie A in England and Ireland, but does not have exclusive rights. At the time of writing, it is unclear how much TNT Sports, which took over Serie A’s broadcasting rights after telecommunications giant BT exited the sports media industry in 2023, paid to hold the rights or how long the new deal will last.
Towards the end of last season, terrestrial broadcaster ITV showed one game per week on streaming service ITVX, but it is unclear at this stage whether a similar deal will continue for the new season.
The U.S. deal will feature approximately 400 games in total, broadcast on streaming service Paramount+. 380 league games from throughout the season, plus 25 Coppa Italia matches and every match of the Italian Super Cup. Select games will also be broadcast on the CBS Sports and CBS Golazo networks. The networks will be available on internet-connected TVs and mobile devices through channels on Paramount+, the CBS Sports App, Pluto TV, CBSSports.com, The Roku Channel, Amazon FreeVee, Local Now and Plex.
The deal is for English language rights in the United States only; rights including Spanish have not yet been transferred.
Paramount+/CBS has invested heavily in Italian football in recent years. Paramount sponsored Inter Milan ahead of the 2023 Champions League final in Istanbul and continued to sponsor the club after they won their 20th Scudetto last season. That deal ended this summer, but Paramount also sponsored Atalanta when they beat Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final in Dublin in May, but this was thought to be a one-off deal.
Outside of North America and the MENA region, Serie A sold its international broadcasting rights for the 2021-24 seasons to Infront, which then sold packages to countries and territories around the world. It remains to be seen whether this deal will continue for next season.
Serie A has opened overseas offices in London, Abu Dhabi and New York in an attempt to catch up with the Premier League and La Liga. Its overseas broadcasting rights revenues for the most recent season were about $658 million over three years, but that pales in comparison to the English top league’s massive $6.5 billion in overseas broadcasting revenues.