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Premier League domestic TV rights go for £3bn. THREE BILLION


The_Rev

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Broke earlier today but somewhat overshadowed by the Euros and Harry Redknapp stories.

The landscape of British broadcasting has shifted dramatically after BT bought a large slice of televised football rights, boosting the Premier League's next TV deal to a record £3bn over three years, a 71% increase.

This equates to at least £14m more per year for each football club, with the bottom team in the league from 2013-14 onwards likely to receive more than the £60.6m Manchester City earned this year for ending the season as champions. Each individual televised match will now cost the broadcasters £6.6m, up from £4.7m under the previous deal.

BSkyB, which has built its business over 20 years on the back of live top flight football, retained most of the rights, securing 116 matches per season from 2013-14 in exchange for £2.3bn over three years.

But BT sprung a huge surprise by winning the rights to 38 games, including almost half the "first pick" games on offer, in exchange for £738m over three years. Richard Scudamore, Premier League chief executive, said BT's securing 18 of the 38 coveted "first pick" matches would be a "game changer". "[bT chief executive] Ian Livingstone and his colleagues have hugely ambitious plans. They have not invested in all this fibre [optic cable] for nothing, they want to establish a direct relationship with consumers," he said.

BT – the latest challenger to Sky after Setanta and ESPN – is expected to launch a new sports channel, available on a variety of platforms. But BT will use the rights to push its high speed broadband service. Its matches will be shown at Saturday lunchtime and on midweek evenings.

Against a grim economic backdrop elsewhere, Scudamore admitted he was "surprised" by the huge hike in income, which he said would allow clubs to continue to compete with their European rivals.

The huge increase in income is good news for club owners, players, their agents and luxury car dealerships and, on the evidence of previous deals, is likely to lead to another sharp rise in transfer fees. But despite the unprecedented riches that have flowed into the coffers of top flight clubs during the Premier League era, clubs made losses of £361m last year despite record income of £2.3bn.

The first TV deal of the Premier League era was worth £304m over five years. Under the new deal, clubs will be guaranteed £3bn from live rights, plus £180m from the BBC for Match of the Day.

Once internet rights and overseas sales, which brought in £1.4bn under the current deals, are taken into account, the total is likely to easily top £5bn over three years.

Scudamore refused to elaborate on other bidders but ESPN, the US sports giant that entered the market when Setanta went bust, and al-Jazeera are among those believed to have ratcheted up the price for Sky and BT. (full article here)

That increase is insane. Interesting to see BT step in, and it will be interesting to see how many people go in for the legal streaming they are offering. I presume this means they will aggressively go after sites which stream games for free now.

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So all the talk a few months ago of Al Jazeera outbidding Sky was misplaced.

Not really. Al Jazeera clearly drove the price up hugely. Clubs will be getting an extra £20m each a season in a couple of years, and that is thanks to the bidding war. It's a total false economy of course but players wages are going to go up again.

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So all the talk a few months ago of Al Jazeera outbidding Sky was misplaced.

Not really. Al Jazeera clearly drove the price up hugely. Clubs will be getting an extra £20m each a season in a couple of years, and that is thanks to the bidding war. It's a total false economy of course but players wages are going to go up again.

Is it a false economy? Because Sky continue to pump the money in, they obviously get value from it.

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I meant amongst the clubs. We will get an extra £20m a season, but it wont do anything to affect the balance of power because everybody else does too.

If you will forgive the terrible metaphor, it's a bit like if you are sitting down watching a show at the theatre when the guy in front stands up, so now you have to stand up to be able to see. Now the guy behind you also has to stand up because he is getting his view blocked by you. Before you know it everybody is standing up and they all have the same view as they did before, only now they dont have seats.

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I meant amongst the clubs. We will get an extra £20m a season, but it wont do anything to affect the balance of power because everybody else does too.

If you will forgive the terrible metaphor, it's a bit like if you are sitting down watching a show at the theatre when the guy in front stands up, so now you have to stand up to be able to see. Now the guy behind you also has to stand up because he is getting his view blocked by you. Before you know it everybody is standing up and they all have the same view as they did before, only now they dont have seats.

I don't think it is that straight forward.

The money clubs receive from domestic TV has increased but the money clubs receive from other sources (match day, sponsors, kit deals etc) has not made the same huge jump. As the TV money is split more evenly between clubs than the money from other sources is this will be a bigger boost for clubs at the bottom than clubs at the top. Basically, Swansea will see a massive increase in there income relative to the previous season, Man U will see only a fraction of their wealth increase.

Secondly, this gives premier league clubs an advantage over clubs from other leagues when competing for players and being successful in Euro comps etc.

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That's what they always say, but football is more geared towards the top clubs now than it was 5, 10 or 20 years ago. I think all this deal will do is drive wages up and raise the price of entry for fans. Again.

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I meant amongst the clubs. We will get an extra £20m a season, but it wont do anything to affect the balance of power because everybody else does too.

If you will forgive the terrible metaphor, it's a bit like if you are sitting down watching a show at the theatre when the guy in front stands up, so now you have to stand up to be able to see. Now the guy behind you also has to stand up because he is getting his view blocked by you. Before you know it everybody is standing up and they all have the same view as they did before, only now they dont have seats.

I don't think it is that straight forward.

The money clubs receive from domestic TV has increased but the money clubs receive from other sources (match day, sponsors, kit deals etc) has not made the same huge jump. As the TV money is split more evenly between clubs than the money from other sources is this will be a bigger boost for clubs at the bottom than clubs at the top. Basically, Swansea will see a massive increase in there income relative to the previous season, Man U will see only a fraction of their wealth increase.

Secondly, this gives premier league clubs an advantage over clubs from other leagues when competing for players and being successful in Euro comps etc.

This.

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And once again the Premiership clubs gallop away from the Championship.

It's soon going to get to the point where promotion and relegation to the Premier League is pointless.

And soon the Champions League is going to stretch far too beyond the rest of the Premiership, if it isn't already.

It's a bloody good job we did stay up this season, because I really think it's getting to the point where the only way is down for relegated clubs now. If you're not in the Premiership, theres no way you have the financial clout to stay there for more than 1 season.

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NESN posted a link to this boilerplate article to their G+ stream with

A lot of money will go to clubs, players and agents, while British fans will pay more and more to watch their favorite teams live.

A rather non-noteworthy observation, save for the fact that NESN is 80% owned by Fenway Sports Group, owners of Liverpool...

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So in a few years the highest paid players will be getting £400k a week.

If any of you have sons who are about 5-12 get them practising really hard from now on. There are plenty of £££££ to be made.

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  • 4 months later...

US rights set to quadruple

NBC Sports Network looks set to be the new home of the English Premier League beginning next season. NBC bid around $83 million, nearly four times what FOX paid for the TV rights during the last cycle. FOX and ESPN have been informed their joint bid was unsuccessful. The move is a surprise and one that could have significant ramifications for soccer in the U.S.

Interest and investment is encouraging, though the soccer television landscape will become more disparate. Here is how it should look beginning next European club season.

ESPN: MLS, World Cup (2014) and Euro (2016)

FOX: Champions League, World Cup (2018, 2022)

NBC: Premier League, MLS

beIN SportUSA: Serie A, La Primera Liga, Ligue Un

GolTV: Bundesliga

Changes: ESPN having no real incentive to sell the sport after the 2014 World Cup will be interesting. After losing out on the World Cup until 2026 at the earliest, does ESPN bother trying to enter the next round of bidding for domestic and Champions League rights? Then there is FOX Soccer, which now has two networks, two World Cups and not a single domestic league.

For Fans: We lament the loss of ESPN’s Premier League coverage, which has been excellent, though this should not affect things greatly. The Olympics are the Olympics. We don’t expect NBC to export some of their more unsavory practices there to soccer coverage. It will be live on television. We’re hoping NBC develops a functional way to watch online, but baby steps. NBCSN has a wider distribution than FOX Soccer and, as the network grows, could mean Premier League games without paying for the sports package.

For NBC: This should be a solid move. Original programming is irrelevant. Sports Networks are built on their live offerings. The Premier League does not draw huge ratings, but it draws them steadily for nine months per year at a time where any ratings are great. Programming-wise it is a much less costly version of baseball.

The US now becomes the second most important TV market (after the UK & Ireland) for the PL; I'm hearing that NBC is going to try and convince the PL and clubs to schedule Sunday 5pm-6pm local time kickoffs (which would put games in a better time slot for the US market).

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