According to La Repubblica, Italian state television paid 160 million euros for the rights to the World Cup, but with Italy out of the tournament, it will be difficult to recoup its investment.
After Italy's failure to qualify for the World Cup, Rai, the Italian state broadcaster, was left with a dilemma. Rai paid 160 million euros for the rights to broadcast the World Cup in Qatar, about double what Mediaset, another Italian broadcaster, paid for the rights to broadcast the World Cup in Russia four years ago.
The investment was made last spring when the Italian might have thought that the Azzurri would never make the play-offs again, but that was not the case now. With Italy once again out of the World Cup, Rai has had a lot of problems recouping its investment.
Rai has two options to recoup some of its investment. One is to retain all of the World Cup rights, or it can sell some of the matches again, with only the semi-finals and finals remaining.
Sky Sports Italia is the most likely buyer, even if they haven't made any moves in that direction yet. Amazon is also a potential buyer, but they are only a live streaming platform and may not be able to support the signal during live streaming, which makes them balk.