Potential relegation could hurt Juventus’ TV money

Juventus’ TV rights could drop at least 60 percent in value if the club is relegated to Serie B, according to Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian financial newspaper.
 
Television broadcasting rights account for more than 50 percent of aggregate football revenues in Italy. The rights belonging to Juventus account for approximately seven percent of total revenues.
 
The club has been threatened with relegation because of the scandal involving match-fixing and general manager Luciano Moggi’s antics.
 
License agreements between television networks and Juventus apparently do not provide any termination or penalty clause for the demotion of Juventus from Serie A for disciplinary reasons, but section 1467 of the Italian Civil Code entitles one party to terminate a contract as a remedy to a subsequent economic imbalance between the obligations of the parties of a contract.
 
This means that the TV companies with rights to the club’s matches could terminate TV contracts if they believe they will substantially lose out on income due to relegation.
 
BSkyB, the pay-tv satellite platform controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, paid EUR 190 million for the pay-tv rights to Juventus’ home matches for two seasons, including the just finished season and the upcoming one.
 
In January 2006, Italy’s Mediaset network bought pay-tv rights for the club’s home matches on all platforms for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons for a EUR 218 million consideration. For a further EUR 30 million, Juventus granted Mediaset an option on 2009-2010 matches.
 
If Mediaset exercises the option, it will pay another EUR 113 million for the third season. Mediaset is set to broadcast Juventus’ home matches by pay-per-view digital terrestrial television and has sub-licensed to Sky the satellite rights on the same matches for EUR 157.3 million.