Football Forum | Ticket Forum | Off-Topic Forum | All

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.

Sven Roeder 9:44 Tue Feb 13
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

What happened to Amazon, Netflix etc who were supposed to come in?
Sky have taken BT’s best bits and left them with the cunty early Saturday game when proper fans are off to their own games.
Will be a lot of BT subscriptions binned

Mike Oxsaw 9:44 Tue Feb 13
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

They could always ask our board to announce this as an improved deal all round. They have experience of doing this.

Trevor B 9:49 Tue Feb 13
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Sven

the article mentioned Amazon, they are still in the running for the remaining packages.

Crassus 11:56 Tue Feb 13
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

The domestic price was over cooked
The real money will come from the overseas market which is growing rapidly
Of course the real nub will be that any excuse of diminishing revenues will encourage the bigger clubs to strive for a bigger slice and ultimately to sell their own deals

Westham67 12:35 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

The Austerity Premier League

chim chim cha boo 1:34 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Our owner is jumping with joy at his new excuse for not spending money on new players.

Alfs 3:55 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Sky are still paying 9.3 million per match. That's a ridiculous amount, particularly when it's unprotected, which it is, with all of the free streams available.

I predicted to a mate 20 years ago that TV rights will be a thing of the past and all football will end up pay per view, via the internet. Each club negotiating their own terms. I don't think it's too far off.

Darby_ 6:03 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

People have predicted the end of the gravy train for 15+ years. I wouldn’t take one year’s numbers too seriously. There will always be ups and downs.

I don’t personally think streams will be too big a factor in the decline of TV money. They’re too annoying and unreliable for the average Premier League ‘customer’.

Either way, I’d be delighted if a financial crash did happen. The game is slowly being taken away from the fans and being turned into a bland corporate product meant to appeal to international audiences.

Hermit Road 8:15 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

There had to be a time when the domestic price hit its limit, I suspect that the worldwide rights have massive growth potential though so would think that the Premier League will keep generating cash. What they mustn’t do is go down the route the big 6 want of giving them a bigger slice of the pie.

nerd 10:18 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Still 2 packages left ,40 matches ,expect another billion being spent. BTs has cost more this time. Still big.

Westside 10:49 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Sky's costs coming down? I look forward to a reduction in their subscription charges.

I think, I may have a very long wait.

ooooh Morley Morley 12:48 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

Hopefully there will be a customer backlash this time....

Not so long ago you only needed a SKY subscription to see all live broadcast games. Soon you will need 3 separate subscriptions as they try to break Sky's 'monopoly' on the sport.

I know we moan about Sky ruining football but now it seems that football is ruining football.

Twats.

Hermit Road 1:57 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

It's the EU who made them split the rights between different channels. The premier league wanted to sell them all to Sky

Mart O 4:23 Wed Feb 14
Re: Premier League TV gravy train finally slowing down?

People have been predicting 'the end' to all this since it began. I can't quite see the value for BT, especially as they're now giving it away free with broadband subscriptions, but where it gets interesting is the overseas rights.

Amazon, FB and co won't bid for the big UK-only packages, it's not worth their time. They might be more interested in the overseas rights, however. They've always struck me as undervalued, given how every cunt watches the PL, wherever you go. If they could be sure they could 'monetise' their subscribers' it'd take the fucking roof off.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

Page 1 - Next