Serie A TV Money 2026/27: How €885m Gets Divided

Key takeaways

• Serie A distributes roughly €880–890m net per season to its 20 clubs under the 2024/25–2028/29 rights cycle. The estimate for 2025/26 was €887m.
• The formula is unchanged for 2026/27: 50% equal share, 28% sporting merit, 22% social reach.
• Every club is guaranteed a floor of about €22m before a single point is won or a single ticket sold.
• The single largest merit-based lever is not league position. Stadium attendance carries 12.54%, more than the final table’s 11.2%.
• The gap between top and bottom earner is around 3.3:1 — roughly double the Premier League’s 1.6:1, despite Serie A having a higher equal-share percentage than many assume.
• A government reform to scrap the Legge Melandri is in progress, but it cannot touch the current contracts. Nothing changes in 2026/27.

The comparison that frames everything

Before the mechanics, the number that matters most to an English-speaking reader:

Serie A distributes roughly a quarter of what the Premier League does, and it distributes that smaller pool far less evenly. This is the structural problem Italian football has been arguing about for a decade, and it is worth understanding why it happens — because the answer is counterintuitive. Serie A’s equal-share component (50%) is not unusually low by European standards. The inequality is generated almost entirely by the other half of the formula.

How much money is in play for 2026/27

Serie A sells centrally. The current five-year cycle was awarded in October 2023 and runs to the end of 2028/29, making 2026/27 the third season of the deal.

Revenue sources

Sky’s slots since 2024/25 are Saturday 20:45, Sunday 18:00 and Monday 20:45. The DAZN/Sky split is unchanged for 2026/27; what has been reworked is the “pick” process for the 20 pre-designated marquee fixtures, where DAZN holds first choice on the majority next season.

On the revenue share: Serie A receives 50% of DAZN’s net residential subscription revenue above a threshold of €750m in year one, rising towards €800m. This is the only upside mechanism in the current cycle. It has never been publicly quantified and is not included in any figure below.

From gross to net: what comes off the top

The pool that reaches the 20 clubs is materially smaller than the sum of the broadcast contracts. Deducted first:

• Parachute payments to the three relegated clubs (€60m fund)
• Mutualità — the statutory solidarity transfer to Serie B, Serie C and the amateur game
• Contributions to AGCOM (the communications regulator) and to grassroots football
• Archive rights and other technical items

Transparency note: The €300m difference is our arithmetic residual, not a figure published by the league. Lega Serie A does not release a line-by-line breakdown of these deductions, and readers should treat the number as an order of magnitude rather than an audited total.

For context on the trend: €898m was distributed in 2024/25, and an estimated €887m in 2025/26 — a mild decline. The contracted rights values point to 2026/27 landing in the same corridor.

The distribution formula in detail

The legal basis is Legislative Decree 9/2008 — the Legge Melandri — as amended by the Riforma Lotti. Three pillars, eight components.

Pillar 1: Equal share — 50%

Half the net pool is split evenly across all 20 clubs. It is by far the largest single item, and the reason a newly promoted side with no history and no audience still clears eight figures.

Pillar 2: Sporting merit — 28%

Pillar 3: Social reach — 22%

The pots in euros — 2026/27 model

Modelled on a net pool of €885m, the midpoint of the €880–890m corridor.

Guaranteed equal share per club in 2026/27 (modelled): approximately €22.1m

Source correction: Calcio e Finanza‘s 2025/26 breakdown lists the attendance pot as “€11.2m”. This is a transposition error — 12.54% of €887m is €111.2m, and only that figure allows the eight components to sum to the stated total. We use the corrected number. Separately, one syndicated version of the same article carries €897m in a single passage; since the equal-share pot is given as €443.5m and is by definition exactly half the pool, €887m is the internally consistent figure.

What this means club by club

Club-level figures for 2026/27 cannot be produced now. The league only settles the calculation once finishing positions, points, attendance averages, certified audience and youth minutes are all final. Publication typically follows in June 2027.

What is solid is the completed season. For 2025/26, Calcio e Finanza estimated:

Structural metrics for 2025/26:

• The top four took just over €285m between them — around 32% of the entire pool.
• The bottom five combined for slightly more than €140m.
• Top-to-bottom ratio: approximately 3.3 : 1.

Milan is the case study that explains the system. A fifth-place finish still produced the second-highest media income in the league, because a full San Siro is worth more under this formula than three league positions. Anyone modelling Serie A revenue from the final table alone will get it wrong. Attendance and certified audience are the variables that move the needle.

The 2026/27 field

Relegated from 2025/26: Pisa, Cremonese, Hellas Verona. Promoted: Venezia (Serie B champions), Frosinone (runners-up), Monza (play-off final winners over Catanzaro).

Why promoted clubs are structurally penalised. Venezia, Frosinone and Monza collect the full €22.1m equal share, but score close to zero on the “previous five seasons” (9.33%) and “historical results” (4.67%) components, and sit near the bottom on both attendance and TV audience. Realistically they land in the same band as 2025/26’s lowest earners: under €30m. Promotion to Serie A is worth roughly a quarter of what promotion to the Premier League is worth, before any parachute considerations.

Parachute payments and solidarity

The parachute

Lega Serie A ring-fences €60m annually for relegated clubs, allocated by length of tenure in the top flight:

If combined entitlements exceed €60m, all payments are cut proportionally. If they fall short, the balance can roll into the following season’s fund up to a €75m ceiling, or be reallocated by the assembly. Payment is conditional on the club actually being admitted to and competing in the following season’s Serie B.

For the clubs relegated in 2025/26 — Cremonese, Pisa and Hellas Verona — the total comes to €45m.

The contrast with England is stark: a Premier League parachute package runs to roughly £40m in year one alone for a single club. Serie A’s entire three-club fund is smaller than what one relegated English side receives.

Mutualità

Under the Melandri decree a statutory share of commercial revenue flows to Serie B, Serie C and the amateur game. This is deducted before the €887m reaches Serie A clubs. Serie B then applies an entirely different logic to its own distribution: sporting merit plays no part, and money is allocated on youth development, academy investment and infrastructure.

What the reform would change

Since June 2025 the Italian government has been drafting enabling legislation (legge delega) to replace the Legge Melandri outright. The known contents:

• Removal of the “no single buyer” prohibition — rights could be sold in full to one operator, with AGCOM pre-approval required for terms beyond three years.
• New distribution principles: more than 50% equal share, a portion for sporting results achieved since 1999/2000, and a portion for the development and deployment of young Italian players.
• Removal of the stadium attendance and TV audience criteria — precisely the 20.9% that currently does most of the work redistributing money towards the established clubs.

As of April 2026, Sports Minister Andrea Abodi was negotiating the text with the relevant parliamentary committees, with no definitive public draft available. Lega Serie A has publicly objected, having been excluded from the drafting process.

None of this affects 2026/27. The draft provides transitional protection for existing contracts, and the DAZN/Sky deal runs to 2028/29. In practice the reform becomes live for the tender covering the cycle from 2029. One nearer-term date to watch: the Mediaset contract for Coppa Italia and Supercoppa expires after 2026/27, so a re-tender falls inside the current window.

Verified vs. modelled

We separate sourced facts from derived figures.

Verified

• The 50/28/22 formula and all eight sub-components
• Rights values: DAZN (€700m), Sky (€200m), international (€240m), Mediaset cups (€56–58m)
• Parachute mechanism and band values (€60m fund; Fascia A/B/C)
• 2025/26 parachute total of €45m for Cremonese, Pisa and Verona
• The 2026/27 field, including promotions and relegations
• 2025/26 concentration and spread metrics

Third-party estimates (attributed)

• 2025/26 net pool of €887m (Calcio e Finanza)
• Club-level 2025/26 revenues (Calcio e Finanza) — these are the outlet’s estimates, not an official league publication

Modelled (our calculation, flagged as such)

• 2026/27 net pool of €885m (assumption within the €880–890m corridor)
• All euro values for the 2026/27 component pots
• Per-club equal share of approximately €22.1m
• The approximately €300m residual for deductions

Deliberate gaps

• No club-level forecast for 2026/27. The required inputs — three-year attendance averages by club, certified TV audience, youth minutes — are not available in verifiable form. Projecting them would be false precision.
• No figure for the DAZN revenue share. The mechanism is public; the realised amounts are not.
• No breakdown of mutualità. Lega Serie A does not publish the component parts.

FAQ

How much TV money does Serie A distribute in 2026/27? Approximately €885m net across the 20 clubs on our modelling. That sits within the recent corridor: €898m in 2024/25 and an estimated €887m in 2025/26. The official figure is only settled after the season ends.

How is Serie A TV money divided? Under the Legge Melandri as amended by the Riforma Lotti: 50% equally, 28% on sporting merit and 22% on social reach. The 28% splits into final league position (11.2%), points (2.8%), results over the previous five seasons (9.33%) and historical results (4.67%). The 22% splits into stadium attendance (12.54%), TV audience (8.36%) and minutes played by young players (1.1%).

What is the guaranteed minimum for a Serie A club? The equal share, modelled at approximately €22.1m for 2026/27. Every club receives it regardless of finishing position, crowd size or viewing figures.

Which Serie A club earns the most from TV money? In 2025/26 Inter led with over €80m, followed by Milan on over €71m and Napoli on approximately €67m. Milan finished only fifth but benefited disproportionately from the attendance criterion.

Who broadcasts Serie A in 2026/27? Domestically, DAZN and Sky. DAZN carries all ten matches per round, seven of them exclusively, for approximately €700m per season. Sky shows three co-exclusive matches — Saturday 20:45, Sunday 18:00 and Monday 20:45 — for approximately €200m. The deal runs to 2028/29.

What do relegated Serie A clubs receive? A parachute payment from a €60m fund. Depending on time spent in the top flight, a club receives €10m (Fascia A), €15m (Fascia B) or €25m (Fascia C). For the clubs relegated in 2025/26 the combined total is €45m.

How does Serie A compare with the Premier League? The Premier League distributes roughly €3.4bn against Serie A’s €887m, and does so far more evenly: its top-to-bottom ratio is around 1.6:1 versus Serie A’s 3.3:1. The gap comes not from Serie A’s equal-share percentage but from the historical-results and attendance components, which reward the same large clubs twice.

Will the Serie A distribution formula change? The Italian government is drafting legislation to replace the Legge Melandri, proposing more than 50% equal distribution and the removal of the attendance and TV audience criteria. The 2026/27 season runs on the existing formula; the reform would first apply to the rights cycle beginning in 2029.