Italy's Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato has, on multiple occasions over the past five years, opened files on DAZN's exclusive rights arrangements for Serie A. The theory underlying those files has matured. It is no longer about price-per-subscriber or churn; it is about the structural effect of long-term exclusive streaming rights on adjacent markets — telco distribution, advertising, secondary-rights sublicensing.
The AGCM's emerging position, visible in its recent Annual Report and in published commitments accepted in lieu of formal infringement findings, is that long-term exclusivity over premium content can have foreclosure effects in markets where streaming distribution is now the primary upgrade path for telco bundles. The remedy contemplated — narrower exclusivity windows, mandated wholesale availability — is the framework that EU media-rights jurisprudence has been edging toward since UEFA / Champions League (Commission Decision 2003/778).
The Italian file is interesting not because of where it ends — most of these matter end in commitments — but because of which national authority is setting the terms. If AGCM gets durable structural commitments, the model travels. Spanish, German, and French league rights tenders are all running on cycles short enough to be reshaped by a Brussels-recognised remedy framework.
