Waiting to understand if and when sport will be able to start again (even if canceled events continue to flock and the football season is at great risk), questions are multiplying about everything that revolves around the sports industry, especially football. We refer to pay TV, whose rights are the first source of turnover for Italian clubs and which today pose a double problem: how to safeguard the revenues of companies and how to meet the millions of subscribers who are paying to see nothing?
The issue is very delicate and the solution very uncertain. Meanwhile, Dazn broke the ice, the streaming sports platform which at the end of 2019 reached 8 million subscribers worldwide (for Italy there are no official numbers): the English parent company would have started contacts with the main leagues football by proposing the suspension of the current payment installments. Among these there is also the Italian Football League, even if the next installment expires in May and therefore there is room to wait for the situation to evolve and decide, even if it is unlikely that within a month we will know with certainty the fate of the championships. However, the money at stake is not small: 130 million from Sky and 32 from Dazn, to be divided between the clubs.
In the meantime, Dazn has come to meet its customers, giving them the opportunity to activate a free month of viewing (there is time until early May and the month can start within a year) and above all by recognizing the "pause" option , with which you suspend yourself from the subscription up to a maximum of 4 months. Same speech for Sky, whose subscribers in Italy are almost 5 million and they pay much more expensive subscriptions, which include a wider range of sports, films and TV series. As for the latter two, nothing to say: the use in these weeks of quarantine is at an all-time high.
The problem is for users of the Soccer and Sports packages, who have been paying for at least a month to see absolutely nothing, except reruns. Obviously, Sky is not to blame, which in fact has meanwhile suspended payments for heavy subscriptions to bars and hotels, even forced into total closure since 12 March last. However, the discontent is growing: many are trying to cancel the contract (even if the process is long), and Sky has given a first signal by offering subscribers of sports packages also the viewing of Cinema channels.
However, it is not excluded that a refund, at least partial in the form of a discount, will be made in the coming weeks: Sky has in fact sent a survey to its subscribers in recent days to ask what kind of treatment they would expect in a situation like this. Among the options to choose from, there was also that of a discount on the monthly payment. Which for the Soccer and Sport packages, net of the various possible offers, is equal to no less than 40 euros.
The hope, in any case, is that somehow the season can be completed. It being understood that whoever pays for the Sport package does not pay only to watch football (Sky also has the NBA in its offer, which is also on hold until a later date), but at least the completion of Serie A and European Cups, repeatedly called for by UEFA who will do everything to get there, would be able to make ends meet, for everyone. Especially for the millions of fans who, after the fear of the virus has passed, can't wait to see their champions on the field again.
