Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported the Int’l Bank of Qatar is “ready to invest no less than” €13B ($15.5B) for the Serie A TV rights for the next 10 seasons to re-sell them to TV channels, according to Olivier Tosseri of LES ECHOS. It is a “staggering” amount considering the €1.3B ($1.5B) per year would be more than the Italian football league currently gets for three seasons. The Serie A rights for the ’18-21 cycle are being auctioned “after the failure of the tender launched last June.” At the time, the league expected to get €1.2B ($1.4B) per season but “only Sky Italia participated,” offering just €495M ($592M). The minimum bid for the '18-21 cycle is €1.05B ($1.26B), which is higher than the €946M per season paid by Sky and Mediaset for the '15-18 cycle. Participants have until Jan. 22 to present their bids. Bocconi University Milan sport management professor Dino Ruta said, "The Qatari proposition is interesting for the internationalization of Italian football. At the moment, it certainly is premature. But it demonstrates that foreign investors are not just looking to invest in clubs, but also in the leagues" (LES ECHOS, 1/8).
