Plan B Forum

The Premier League has sold television rights to its games for a record £5.136bn, 71% above last time.




Sky paid £4.2bn for five of the seven TV packages while rival BT paid £960m for the other two in the record TV rights auction. The deal will run for three years from 2016. Sky paid 83% more than it did in the last round three years ago. BT paid 18% more and has increased the number of live matches it will show from 38 to 42 a year. The last TV rights auction in 2012 was also won by Sky and BT. BT will pay £320m per season, against £246m per season at present. The communications giant said that equated to £7.6m per game.

Premier League TV rights

£5.136bn Cost of rights 2016-19
71% Increase on 2013-16
£10.19m per game
168 games to be shown live
126 will be shown by Sky
42 will be shown by BT

Source: Premier League
AP

Sky, meanwhile, said it will pay £1.392bn per year, or £11.07m per match, for the right to broadcast 126 live matches, 10 more than currently. and the maximum Sky was allowed to bid for under the auction rules. It means Sky will pay £4.1bn of the total £5.136bn deal. The Premier League TV rights auction had been expected to raise as much as £4.4bn. Sky admitted the amount it paid for the TV rights was about £330m more than analysts had forecast. The results of the auction means it will cost the two broadcasters an average of £10.19m per game to show a single Premier League match.


Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said the money raised from the auction would be invested by clubs in making improvements to stadiums as well as "youth development and good causes" and said clubs would continue to "put on the best matches that they can". The Premier League plans to invest £56m in grassroots projects, including 50 artificial pitches. Mr Scudamore added clubs should address ticket prices to ensure stadiums are full.

In 2012, Sky and BT paid £3bn, using live football not only as a way to encourage new customers to pay for their services but to defend other parts of their empire, particularly the sale of broadband packages. The bidding process has pushed up the price for the right to broadcast Premier League matches substantially in recent years. The results of the latest auction sees BT and Sky pay more than double the £1.77bn paid for the right to broadcast Premier League matches in 2011.

Tom Mockridge, Virgin Media's chief executive, said the auction process was a licence fo r the Premier League to "print money" and was "hurting fans". He added: "You can't blame the Premier League - they are simply exploiting the sales process. But this is hurting fans and does not warrant an exemption from normal competition law rules. "There are other and better ways to structure the auction - selling more games gives more value for money and selling non-exclusively to broadcasters would take some of the heat out of auction process."

Ofcom is currently investigating whether there is enough competition in the way in which the broadcast rights to Premier League matches are sold, following a complaint by Virgin Media in November. It will publish its initial findings in March. Last week Virgin asked Ofcom to halt the auction process until the regulator had completed its initial investigation but the application was refused.

Premier League football clubs spent £130m in this year's January transfer window, the same amount as in January 2014, research shows.

The biggest spenders were Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, which between them accounted for around half of the total, according to Deloitte.

A flurry of last-minute deals worth some £45m helped to lift the total.

Deloitte said despite clubs "relative restraint" in January, 2014/15 was still a record season for transfers.

The accountancy firm said clubs in total had spent more than £950m on acquiring players, easily surpassing the 2013/2014 season's record of £760m.

However, the amount for the January window was significantly less than the record £225m seen in January 2011.

"Given the record level of spending seen in the summer, it is not entirely surprising that we haven't seen a new record for the January window," said Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

Big deals on Monday's final day of the window included Chelsea's £23.3m payment for Colombian winger Juan Cuadrado from Italian club Fiorentina, which was part-funded by the club's sale of Andre Schurrle to German side Wolfsburg.

Manchester City's £28m purchase of Swansea's Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony was the most expensive signing of the January window.

Deloitte said increased spending on players by Premier League clubs was largely the result of increased broadcast revenue.

The rights to cover Premier League football between 2013 and 2016 were sold for £3bn in 2012 - a 70% rise on the previous deal.

All 20 Premier League clubs now rank in the global top 40 based on their revenue.