English Premier League eyes biggest-ever TV rights deal by selling 70 more matches
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The extra games will also come from every match of five midweek rounds per season and the final round of the season being shown live.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
LONDON – The English Premier League is aiming to smash its own record domestic television rights deal after making 70 more matches available for broadcast from 2025.
Currently, 200 matches per season – there are 380 in total – are sold to broadcasters in the United Kingdom with the three-year deal that runs until the 2024-25 season worth a reported £5 billion (S$8.3 billion).
A Saturday afternoon blackout, designed to protect attendances in the lower leagues, will remain.
However, matches switched to Sundays due to the involvement of clubs in European fixtures will be broadcast live for the first time.
The extra games will also come from every match of five midweek rounds per season and the final round of the season being shown live.
Rather than the usual three-year cycle, the Premier League is inviting offers on a four-year deal lasting till the 2028-29 season.
This is the first Premier League tender process since 2018 as the current deal, expiring in 2022, was rolled over for an extra three seasons due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Five packages containing between 42 and 65 live matches will be available for bidding.
The present deal is split between 128 matches for Sky Sports, 52 for TNT Sports and 20 on Amazon.
Competition is expected to be fierce, with streaming platform DAZN also reportedly interested in acquiring rights for the first time.
According to the BBC, the tender process is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
Premier League clubs already enjoy a huge financial advantage over their European competitors due to far more lucrative domestic and international TV rights deals.
This has allowed them to spend way more in the transfer window to bring in top talent from around the world.
According to Deloitte Sports Business Group, Premier League teams collectively spent a record US$2.9 billion (S$4 billion) in the 2023 close-season transfer window, exceeding the US$2.3 billion in the previous summer.
This is far more than the French Ligue 1 (US$950 million), the Italian Serie A (US$890 million), the German Bundesliga (US$786 million) and the Spanish La Liga (US$464 million). AFP
