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Trevor B 9:34 Tue Feb 13
Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Premier League takes a hit as football TV rights price falls

Some packages of matches up for auction fail to meet reserves

The era of huge financial growth in England's Premier League looks to have stalled, after it emerged that television broadcasters were on track to pay hundreds of millions of pounds less for the right to screen top-tier football matches in the UK

After a five-day auction, Sky and BT won the right to continue screening games but the Premier League were forced to take the unusual step of holding back some matches, saying that bidding for them was continuing.

The auction invited broadcasters to bid for 200 of the 380 fixtures each season between 2019 and 2022. The 200 games were split into seven packages with no single buyer allowed to win more than five.

By Tuesday evening, Sky had secured four packages with BT winning just one. The Premier League said the value it had realised at this stage of the process was £4.464bn significantly less than the £5.1bn secured for all the matches in the last rights auction.
The organisation said the remaining two packages for broadcasters to show an entire schedule of matches on midweek nights and bank holidays, allowing viewers to pick the game they watch were still to be sold with interest from multiple bidders.

People involved in the auction said the Premier League had not sold the final two packages as they had failed to hit their reserve prices.
The final result looks set to be a significant blow to Richard Scudamore, executive chairman of the Premier League, who has secured ever-increasing windfalls from broadcasters during his nearly two-decade tenure.

Sky has substantially lowered its cost per game in the new auction with the price falling from £11.05m to £9.3m per match, a 16 per cent drop. Its overall spend per season has fallen £199m to £1.2bn despite the number of games it will show rising to 128 from 126.

Stephen van Rooyen, Sky's UK chief executive, said: We continue to invest in content that our customers value and which complements our strategy to broaden our offer.

BT's only package of rights related to early kick-offs on Saturdays, which typically achieve lower ratings than other weekend games, paying £295m per season for 32 games compared to the £320m it currently pays for the Saturday early evening slot.

The vast majority of broadcasting revenue is split between the Premier League's 20 member clubs. The money has often been reinvested into record transfer fees for players, with clubs paying superstar wages to attract many of the world's brightest talents to England's top division.
But a lack of competitive tension between the two main bidders, Sky and BT, appears to have led to a tepid auction for the new round of domestic broadcasting rights.

Before bidding, BT said its ambitions for live sport had diminished and that it was satisfied with being a strong number two behind Sky.
Another incentive for the two to bid strongly against one another fell away in December, when they signed a cross-licensing deal, allowing BT to include Sky Sports in its television packages from 2019 and Sky to sell BT Sport to its subscribers.

Mr Scudamore held meetings with tech companies, including Amazon and Facebook, hoping to draw Silicon Valley groups into the auction. Those efforts appear to have been vain, although the Premier League has not said which companies remain in the bidding process.

Willtell 11:04 Fri Mar 23
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Except isn't it Sky that pay all the money so work out the schedules. I'm not sure individual clubs get much say in it.

AKA ERNIE 11:00 Fri Mar 23
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

buster spot on mate and no reason given either just tough shit we are moving it again

Buster 11:38 Thu Mar 22
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

These cunts are getting worse. 24hrs after tickets for Arsenal went on sale, they change the fucking date yet again and put it back to the Sunday, now clashing with the FA Cup and London Marathon.

It’s an absolute fucking joke.

Mike Oxsaw 10:54 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Full Claret Jacket 5:47 Sat Feb 17

Modern IT can probably help there - all Saturday 3pm kick-offs just block everything related to the games you want to watch until a time that suits YOU.

Punch everyone who subsequently lets you the outcome before you've watched the game. They'll soon get telled.

Full Claret Jacket 5:47 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Good news. Hopefully the ridiculous wages and transfer fees can be reduced and the days of bang average players getting millions a year will slip away. Put football back as weekend and midweek only. Sick of TV dictating odd weekdays.

Jaan Kenbrovin 3:00 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

I wouldn't want to lose the top 6, but I don't think English football would suffer much if they fucked off for a Euro super league. I think they'd suffer as rivalry's would be lost and interest outside those elite clubs would be minimal, whereas adding 6 championship teams to the PL would create more of a level playing field and probably more exciting seasons, even with the obvious loss in revenue from PL tv deals.

CL viewing figures have dropped significantly in recent years. I can't remember the last CL game I watched, let alone enjoyed. The obscene greed and saturation of football is killing it. I honestly would like to see less football on TV and less money in the game, it might give back some of the magic that has been lost.

Pagey 1:22 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

I think some people live in this romantic world where football is still stuck in the 80’s and your star striker lives around the corner with his mum.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if West Ham were in a top domestic league without the ‘big 6’ then interest would soon fall. Any decent player would be in the ‘Super League’ or whatever and any decent prospect would soon go that way too. The big games are what most West Ham fans look forward to.

If you really do feel that way then do what others do and go and support someone like Dagenham instead because they would love the additional fans over there. I go with my nephew, who loves them, and it is a totally different feel to the game and really down to earth. They are in big financial trouble right now and need the support and people through the gates.

Would I want that for West Ham though? No chance.

Sven Roeder 12:17 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Ironically the drop of ticket income as a proportion of total revenue means that being in an atmospheric 40,000 FOOTBALL stadium adds more to the 'PRODUCT' than bigger soulless stadia aimed at corporate needs.
As usual like with taking £18m for Rio (Leeds sold him a year later for £30m) because the transfer fee system was about to collapse shows that West Ham can be relied on to be on the wrong side of history in every decision.

RM10 11:51 Sat Feb 17
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

I agree mike the premier league has lost it to me, would like to see teams like ours pull out and form a league before the top 6 pull out to a European super league, Nottingham Leeds norwich Ipswich millwall etc... imagine money not being the prime target

Mike Oxsaw 10:45 Thu Feb 15
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

I think I'd not be that Bothered if West Ham fell out of the Premier League and remained in the Championship for-evermore; let the cash-driven prima-donnas get on with their show-boating Harlem Globetrotters-lite activities.

The "lower tier" is (still, just) far more like the game I want to be associated with (as a fan) - in fact, England could probably do no worse than to restrict it's player selection to the Championship & below and go for a "sum-of-the-parts" solution rather that a bunch of talented, egotistical, cash-driven individuals.

That or the current top 6 just fuck off and join a pan-European league of 18 teams, playing their games in "specially selected" venues at a time & date of their sponsor's bidding.

Sir Alf 9:14 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Ricky Bobby 5:48 Wed Feb 14

I'm in the Cotswolds and have the same feeling... 3PM Saturday is what football should be about but that is when it was connected back to its roots, the industrial age ( long gone ) , works teams and the working man. The service or retail worker of the new millennium wants a totally different thing and now Johnny Foreigner is what matters.

The whole game is about who has the most money or should I say spends the most. Not as unpredictable as it once was. We pretty much know which 3 or 4 teams will win everything.

For a City or top 4 fan its like going into a Casino and jumping for joy when the house wins.

Mart O 7:32 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Anyone know when the next auction for overseas rights takes place ? Last PL estimates for the next 3 year cycle pointed to a 40% rise, up to 4.2 billion Sterling, but it's finger in the air stuff, I'd have thought.

RBshorty 7:20 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Slowing down.?
This puppy just about to step up a gear. As already been mentioned. Walk into any bar on the planet and there’s always a Premiership game playing. No other League or sport enjoys that kind of exposure.!

CrowleyHammer 7:16 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Wasn't one of the Rio sale excuses "The transfer bubble could burst tomorrow"

Quite the seer was Terence.

Mart O 7:13 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Fuck me mate. No offense, but even for WHO, that's delirious. You been on the crack pipe again ?

Mike Oxsaw 7:12 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Mart O 6:52 Wed Feb 14

Crowds (and the "real" big, fuck-off flags that drift over them) can be cgi'ed in with the appropriate soundtrack.

Johnny foreigner still gets the "footballing experience" he expects.

It's all about return on investment. I mean, why pay for a big shiny new stadium if, over it's lifetime, it returns a lower than average return on investment compared to other revenue streams?

SurfaceAgentX2Zero 7:04 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Empty stadiums scream, 'This is a shit product, why would you care?'

If you don't believe me, see what's happened to test cricket outside of England.

Hermit Road 7:00 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

“to such an extent, I believe, that clubs will start to see footfall (including all the add-ons) as a cost rather than a profit and look at ways of trying to disincentive people actually turning up at games.”

TV money is huge, but while they’re still making many millions through gates and merchandising of attendees, clubs will keep wanting you there. What business actively looks to cut profits?

Mart O 6:52 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Nonsense. Not the same 'product' at all in an empty stadium without the fans creating an atmosphere.

As for dwarfing the UK rights, that's not likely to happen overnight. They'd have to more than double in the next round to do that.

Mike Oxsaw 6:42 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

As stated, it is the overseas TV rights which will dwarf both the UK TV rights and club gate receipts - to such an extent, I believe, that clubs will start to see footfall (including all the add-ons) as a cost rather than a profit and look at ways of trying to disincentive people actually turning up at games.

Ricky Bobby 5:48 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

I am all for a bit of football on TV but this season we have played on:

Monday night
Tuesday night
Wednesday night
Thursday night
Friday night
Saturday 3pm
Saturday night
Sunday

Working mans hobby... 4 of 13 EPL matches this season have been at 3pm on Saturday.

I work full time and live in Bristol, I cannot make the last train home unless I leave 5-10 minutes before the end of the night games.

£800 for a ST is hard to justify when the club and TV channels are just milking it.

Oct-Nov we was on TV every week for 7 straight... Okay for the armchair supporter but those who pump money in to the club get shafted.

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