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Competition is at the heart of professional sport. The broadcasters who buy domestic broadcast rights from England’s footballing Premier League appear less keen on it. Current auction cycles of three years come too often for them.
The EPL plans to extend the length of these contracts from three to four years. This signals nervousness over stagnating revenues.
Broadcasters pay fees to the EPL for the right to televise football games. But first they must outbid rivals for packages of scheduled games. Sky, TNT Sports (BT Group with Warner Bros Discovery) and Amazon control these rights currently. Rivals with deep pockets include Apple, which has recently acquired television rights for America’s Major League Soccer.
Last season, UK broadcasting rights produced 54 per cent of EPL club revenues. The balance came from commercial sponsorships and match day ticket sales.
Following a decade of growth, annual domestic EPL broadcast fees have flatlined. International bidders from the US, Europe and Asia could help them march upwards again
NBC paid £2.1bn in 2021 for six years of US rights, tripling what it paid in 2015. Overseas rights have gone from almost nothing of the total to around a tenth today, thinks sports finance expert Dan Plumley of Sheffield Hallam University.
Locking in domestic revenues for another year makes some sense. Contracts are typically two to three times longer in US professional sports. The next auction cycle begins soon. Tacking on another year should increase the EPL’s take to £6.5-£7bn compared with around £5bn for three-year contracts.
The EPL will hope for more. But it must balance the profit motive with the risk of regulation. The UK government has proposed an independent football watchdog.
Expect the EPL to increase its revenue sharing with lower league clubs, most of which get only a trickle, in a bid to forestall tighter oversight.
A cynic might add that changing the term of TV rights contracts reduces comparability. Sharp price rises to finance higher wages for elite players would be a little less obvious.
Shrewd footballers are more likely to bend the rules of the game when the ref’s sightlines are obscured.
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