OneFootball
- OneFootball will show 38 live matches a season
- Deal complements existing broadcast arrangement with BT Sport
Digital soccer platform OneFootball has expanded its partnership with the Italian Serie A to include live streaming in the UK and Ireland.
The two-year agreement, struck by the Italian top-flight’s media rights partner Infront, includes 38 live matches a season made available to OneFootball users for free until 2023/24 and complements the arrangement with pay-TV broadcaster BT Sport.
Most matches will take place on Saturday evenings with a handful taking place during midweek rounds. The first game to be covered by the deal is an opening round fixture between defending Serie A champions Inter Milan and Serie B winners Lecce.
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“We’re proud, together with OneFootball, to be broadening the reach and accessibility of Serie A around the world,” said Luigi de Servio, Serie A’s chief executive. “We have no doubt that our upcoming seasons will offer many thrilling games and exciting highlights, now available for British and Irish fans to enjoy.”
OneFootball already offers highlights of all 380 Serie A matches on its platform, while it is the league’s official ‘video moments’ digital collectibles partner. Starting this season, OneFootball will mint 1,300 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the Serie A, Coppa Italia and Suppercoppa Italiana for fans to buy, collect, and trade.
The platform also shows live matches from a range of leagues across Europe, South America, and Asia but the addition of Serie A, which was hugely popular in the UK in the 1990s thanks to Channel 4’s free-to-air-coverage, is arguably its most significant move to date.
“At OneFootball, we love Italian soccer, and are equally passionate about bringing fans around the world closer to the clubs and leagues they love,” said Nikolaus von Doetinchem, vice president of OTT streaming and media rights at OneFootball. “This deal with Serie A is the latest in our growing portfolio of distribution deals and indicative of our mission to bring our young, mobile-first user base closer to the action.
“We know that Italy’s Serie A is renowned and much loved by fans across the globe. We can’t wait to bring fans in the UK and Ireland the highs and lows of this iconic league week in, week out.”
In a separate deal, Serie B fans around the world will be able to watch highlights from each round of matches thanks to a deal with Rai. The public broadcaster will air the programme on its Rai Italia international television channel, which once showed live Serie A matches to Italian expatriots. The first programme will be shown on Tuesday 20th September.
