Sport on TV: Why live sport is a ‘magic serum’ – but not everyone is winning
The media rights situation is certainly more complicated than it appears. Late last year, the Premier League announced the UK’s largest ever sports rights deal – a record domestic TV deal worth £6.7bn for the 2025-29 cycle, an increase of 4%.
However, as this will be spread over four years rather than the traditional three, the actual annual benefit (£1.67bn) will be lower than in the 2016 to 2019 cycle (£1.71bn). With up to 100 games a year set to be shown live, the £6m earned per televised game next season will be far less than the £10m earned from 2016-19, when just 168 games were shown.
The fact that even the Premier League will earn less from domestic media rights per game and per season than it did a decade ago seems to reinforce the feeling that the competition, which has been around for more than 30 years, may have reached complete saturation. maturity.
Amazon is not bidding to retain its single Premier League package for the next cycle, preferring to focus on Champions League rights. The club hoped that major partners Sky and TNT would face stiff competition from streaming services, driving up the value of the rights, but this failed to materialize. Add to that other economic and lifestyle factors, such as cost of living and illegal streaming, and the environment seems challenging.
Perhaps this helps explain why some senior figures in the English club game are reportedly putting new pressure on the current game. TV blackout will be canceled at 3pm on Saturday, external future.
Article 48 of the Football Association’s rule book prohibits the live broadcast of any football matches between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. The purpose is to protect attendances across the pyramid, but also to allow the 110 Premier League games per season to still be played after the blackout. locking. Clubs will be able to make more money from selling media rights next season.
Asked about the future of the Premier League, the Premier League told BBC Sport: “We have only recently completed a domestic TV rights deal to take us to the end of the 2028-29 season, so the ink is not yet dry on these arrangements.” 3pm Click blackout.
“As part of our next set of protocols we have significantly increased the number of matches broadcast and our first priority is to fully assess the effect of these new arrangements before considering our subsequent actions.
“These agreements, which start next season, reaffirm the Premier League’s support for Article 48 as a way of protecting grassroots participation and attendances across all leagues. Anything beyond this is just speculation at this stage.”
