Less than a week after the Ligue de Football Professional (LFP) was forced to curtail its domestic broadcast rights auction in France, Italy’s Serie A signed a new TV deal with Sky and DAZN.
Not everyone was satisfied with the terms, though.
Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis reacted to the deal struck by Sky and DAZN, which is for the next five years, by saying that Italian football “will die” and that the two broadcasters “are not competent”.
It appeared that European football, at least from a TV rights perspective, was in a bit of a tailspin, with this providing the backdrop to the Premier League beginning the process of selling their domestic rights across a four-year period starting from the 2025-26 season and ending in 2028-29.
The Premier League though, buoyed by the continued growth of their international rights which sold for just over £5billion ($6.05bn) for the 2022-25 cycle — marginally more than the domestic rights they sold to broadcasters such as Sky and TNT Sports (previously BT Sport) — will not be concerned about what is happening on the continent.
As part of their tender for the next cycle of domestic rights, they announced an additional 70 matches — taking the number to 270 — will be shown on live television, meaning over two-thirds of the 380 matches in each campaign will now be available for fans to watch.
The cycle length is increasing from three years to four years, while the number of packages — previously seven — has decreased to five and they are each aligned with specific kick-off times.
These will be matches scheduled for 12.30pm and 5.30pm UK time on Saturdays, 2pm and 4.30pm on Sundays, and Monday and Friday evenings at 8pm.
Rather than be alarmed by the LFP scrapping its domestic rights auction or Serie A’s latest deal being criticised by the Napoli owner, Francois Godard, a senior media analyst for Enders Analysis, believes alarm bells will not be ringing inside the Premier League.
“I think the outcome in Italy is encouraging,” Godard told The Athletic. “It could have been much worse as there is no active competition between Sky and DAZN. Nevertheless, DAZN is putting in a significant amount and Sky is paying €200m (£176.6m; $210.9m) for three non-exclusive games each weekend. If I were the Premier League, I would find this reassuring.”
TNT Sports’ punditry team (Photo: Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
Following four months of negotiations, the broadcasting rights in Italy were sold to DAZN and Sky for at least a combined €4.5bn. DAZN will be paying around €700million per season to broadcast every Serie A fixture until 2029.
Similarly to his view on Serie A’s latest deal, Godard is not reading too much into the LFP pulling the auction for the rights to broadcast Ligue 1, after they failed to receive any offers that met the minimum price, and expects them to receive a similar deal to their Italian counterparts.
“If you wanted to bid, then you had to accept the minimum price, which broadcasters thought was too high,” Godard explains. “Ligue 1 tried high prices, but I don’t think they are fundamentally unhappy to go to one-on-one negotiations.
“I would even argue they may prefer one-to-one negotiations and the flexibility they entail. Their call to tender was mandatory because of anti-trust regulations, so they did what they had to do. They were a bit too ambitious with the price, and now the real discussions are going on.”
LFP president Vincent Labrune had set a target of bringing in €1bn a year in media revenue. This was the number promised by MediaPro, a Spanish broadcaster, in 2018, only for its Telefoot venture to collapse within months of it starting in the 2020-21 season.
The hope was that the LFP’s current broadcast partners Amazon Prime and Canal+ would challenge beIN Sports and DAZN for the rights, with Apple, the U.S. technology giant, potentially entering the mix to further drive up the value of the packages.
That scenario, however, did not play out — and it leaves the LFP staring down the barrel of falling even further behind its counterparts in England, Italy, Germany and Spain.
When you combine domestic and international TV money, the Premier League currently makes more than £3.1bn a year from its broadcast rights; La Liga earns £1.9bn, the Bundesliga £1.3bn and Serie A in the region of £1.2bn.
It is for this reason that the other four leagues believe the Premier League is the Super League, and gives credence to the narrative that its peers need to do something drastic to alter the landscape and close the gap.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s highest court, is due to rule on the failed Super League breakaway on December 21. The Super League’s case is being supported by Real Madrid and Barcelona, along with promotion company A22.
Their complaint is that UEFA ran an illegal monopoly in football, therefore scuppering the proposed league, which is an allegation the governing body denies.
A commonly held view inside the industry is that the domestic income generated via the sale of TV rights by the Premier League had reached its peak.
The below table highlights how the domestic rights revenue compares to overseas income. The notable jump of more than £2bn in the UK income from 2013-2016 and 2016-2019 was largely down to the battle between Sky and BT Sport.
Premier League TV rights
Period| UK rights| Overseas rights
—|—|—
1992-1997
£214 million
£40 million
1997-2001
£743 million
£98 million
2001-2004
£1.38 billion
£178 million
2004-2007
£1.13 billion
£325 million
2007-2010
£1.88 billion
£625 million
2010-2013
£1.95 billion
£1.44 billion
2013-2016
£3.2 billion
£2.23 billion
2016-2019
£5.34 billion
£3.1 billion
2019-2022
£5.01 billion
£4 billion
2022-2025
£5 billion
£5.05 billion
The table also shows that the Premier League is breaking a 22-year trend in its most recent tender by increasing the length of the cycle from three years to four years.
“They always adjust and they have always been relatively flexible,” Godard explains. “I don’t see any massive strategic change. Four years is the normal market demand.
“Spain went from three years to five years, France is going from four years to five years, Italy went from three years to five years, and Germany is considering going from four years to five years.
“The market is more difficult and broadcasters want more certainty.”
And what about increasing the number of games available from 200 to 270? Is this about the Premier League looking for ways to increase the value of their domestic deal?
“They are doing something the broadcasters want, but it doesn’t lead to an increase of the value,” Godard adds.
“To increase the value, you have to have consumers paying more and, at this point, consumers will not pay more. There is a cost of living crisis and that has been difficult for pay TV. Increasing the number of games may allow you to bargain for the same price.”
The five packages available to broadcasters, which range from 42 to 65 matches per season, is a change from the current system, and the placement of midweek matches within the packages is yet to be confirmed by the Premier League.
You would expect Sky to remain the UK’s dominant broadcaster of Premier League football, while TNT are going to want to stay as a player. The package (consisting of 20 games per season) previously bought by Amazon Prime has been discarded, so it would be a surprise to see them compete with main broadcasters for more expensive slots .
Elsewhere, DAZN are expected to try and gain a foothold and bid, while there is always the possibility that Apple, or possibly YouTube, make a surprise play for Premier League football.
“I don’t think the Premier League will have illusions about the potential for increases within the British market,” Godard said. “I think they are realistic and what counts, strategically, is that there is a gap between themselves and the other continental leagues.
“La Liga is the closest to the Premier League but the gap is increasing because the Premier League keeps increasing its international revenue.
“With this gap being maintained, the Premier League’s position as the richest, meaning its clubs can buy the best players, is not going to be threatened — even if the domestic auction is disappointing and there is a little decrease.”
(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
