Domestic TV rights deal is another cash bonanza for Premier League clubs

, 10 February, 59comments  |  Jump to most recent
The details of the latest domestic broadcast deal have been revealed, with Sky Sports and BT paying a combined £5.13bn for the rights to screen English Premier League matches between 2016-2019.

Competition between rival broadcasters means that the new deal eclipses the record £3.5bn figure negotiated for the current period and sees Sky and BT paying over £10m per match.

Sky retain their 5:1 ratio of matches, earning the right show the maximum 126 matches per season permitted, preserving its exclusivity over the 4pm Sunday and Monday night slots and adding up to 10 Friday night matches for the first time.

BT's packages includes the late Saturday kickoffs, a mixture of midweek evening games and rights to the Champions League and FA Cup.

The deal is another huge boon to top-flight clubs who will be guaranteed between £99m and £156m a season, depending on where they finish in the table.

The bidding for overseas rights is expected to be just as fierce and will likely see a similarly large hike, with Eurosport expected to join the auction and and Qatari-owned beIN Sports looking to expand its share.

 

Reader Comments (59)

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Colin Glassar
1 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:00:07
£5.1bn for the new TV deal? That is sick. How much more will we get out of that? Surely now we can spend some serious money in the summer on new players.
Michael Kenrick
Editorial Team
2 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:03:32
Yea, some heated opinions on 5Live over that, Colin. Up from around £3bn.
Bobby Thomas
3 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:14:00
Colin,

We can get busily borrowing against future revenues before maxing ourselves out just in time for any proposed ground move!!

Surely the deal means even WE must be able to pitch in our usual proposed pittance for any free ground ride weÂ’re after?

Colin Glassar
4 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:15:58
This is an insane amount of money but hopefully we will soon start to see the benefits on and off the field.

Several questions, how much extra will we get? Will it be invested in the team? Stadium upgrade? New stadium? Bit of both? Or will it disappear on new lawn mowers and "unknown costs" or whatever they were called.

Let the debate begin.

Dean Adams
5 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:28:09
Colin. Looking at the top and the base figure it would seem that it will be £3million per place, 1st getting a whopping £156million, with the £3million decrease per place. Seriously crazy money, with very little excuse to not invest in infrastructure. Then again when have EFC done that?
Colin Glassar
6 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:36:16
ThatÂ’s my main worry Dean, I simply donÂ’t trust this board. Who knows how many debts and commitments are hidden from public scrutiny? How much do we really owe the banks, Green and Earl etc....?

The finances at Everton are akin to a black hole IMO and I simply donÂ’t believe any of the spin coming out of the club. I hope IÂ’m proven wrong.

Peter Morris
7 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:29:37
I think the first and most obvious point to make is that this news re-emphasises, if it ever needed to be, the importance of us retaining our PL status, and in recent months the spectre of the loss of it has re-emerged after years locked away in the cupboard.

Secondly, it makes EvertonÂ’s announcement of a season ticket price freeze look like an inspired piece of PR. So inspired, that I suspect Barnacle Bill had some inside knowledge! The issue of ticket prices is now front and centre, in particular at clubs with working class fan bases, and Everton have put themselves in a good place on this subject, for now al least.

Thirdly, it will inevitably make the financial case for a new stadium much more achievable for the club(subject to my first point of course),Indeed, I have now become far less sceptical than I was on this coming about.

In turn, this will remove perhaps the biggest barrier to Everton falling under the ownership if the mega rich foreign owner. I suspect that their financial advisors at this very moment will be running the rule over every Â’availableÂ’ Premiership club, and even the larger ones at the top of the Nationwide. I think it is inevitable that we will fall under the spotlight, and this will intensify should the new stadium project gain meaningful momentum.
in the final analysis, those who have been baying for Kenwright and his mates to be replaced may finally get their wish.

A jaw-dropping comment that Richard Scudamore made at the press conference was that the new deal would mean that the bottom club in the Premier League under the new deal, will have a higher enterprise value than Ajax of Amsterdam!

James Stewart
9 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:43:59
Insane amount of money. Now is not the time to risk EPL status. Martinez better buck his ideas up as Bill wonÂ’t be so patience if we are in a perilous position for long
Dave Abrahams
10 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:43:30
You can guarantee that quite a big percentage will go to the players and their pimps ( agents).
Colin Glassar
11 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:44:34
Good post that Peter. But in financial terms what does it mean? Last year(?) we had a £120m turnover, with this new deal what will it be like? Double or less?
Kunal Desai
12 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:49:05
With this deal does it not mean that all the other lesser clubs will all potentially all have the same spending power? I really donÂ’t think it changes much for us under this board. We still wonÂ’t see signicant levels of investment in the playing staff. Millions will go down a blackhole into Bill and his cronies offshore bank accounts. I wonder if Bill and his pals are Â’valuedÂ’ clients of HSBC!
Andrew Ellams
13 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:57:38
This whole circus is going to go very wrong at some point. IÂ’m not a fan of these obscene agreements, they just push the fans further away.
Ian Bennett
14 Posted 10/02/2015 at 19:57:14
An extra £2bn between 20 clubs, so we should be looking at another £30m a season, plus more to come from overseas rights.

Our turnover of £120m had just £20m of match day gate receipts. Expect the tv money to go into player pockets rather than reducing home and away ticket prices.

Colin Glassar
15 Posted 10/02/2015 at 20:06:11
ThatÂ’s my worry Kunai. Will we see any of itin a substantial way?
Declan Brown
16 Posted 10/02/2015 at 20:03:12
Boy oh boy itÂ’s getting utterly insane.

£156m for winning the league from 2016-7 onwards, £60m alone for reaching the Champs League group stages from next season. The gap between 4th and 5th really starts to widen from next season, then that deal kicks in that summer.

I have 3 wishes to keep us in the sane world...

1. Get the ticket prices down to £15 maximum or pro-rata equivalent for season tickets. Fill all the stadiums for all games, reducing the prices won’t see a huge drop in income compared to TV money (unless you’re Arsenal or Utd who can charge up to £100 a ticket)
2. Get our debt paid off asap. If income goes up £40m+ extra per season clear the debts.
3. New stadium. Rebuild Goodison stand by stand. Do something now while the money is there. No excuses now. None whatsoever

Back in the real world, the race is on for the first £500,000 per week salary in the Premier League...and the most important game of the season will be the Championship play off final for financial reasons alone. Relegation from the Premier League will kill teams off for good now.

All aboard the rollercoaster. Let the mayhem continue.

Stephen Brown
17 Posted 10/02/2015 at 20:16:54
ItÂ’s all pretty immoral really! Obscene amount of money to be thrown about but the reality is, as some posters have alluded to, it will not change much about our spending power!

All PL teams will have lots of money to spend on medioka players and give astronomical wages to mercenaries! I used to think the bubble would burst but now IÂ’m not so sure it will and itÂ’s becoming more and more likely that our only chance of success is inherihiting an Arab, Russian or American who is wanting to have a plaything. Cue the debate about selling our soul etc!

ItÂ’s all very depressing really as IÂ’d love to be in a position to ignore football/footballers but my love of the blues stops me from doing it !

Rant over and back to the pills!! Only a 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge can cheer me up now!

Peter Morris
18 Posted 10/02/2015 at 20:22:46
Hi Colin(11),
you ask an interesting question, and I guess we’ll only know the answer when the PL decide what to do with the extra monies, and then tell us. The headline is a 70% uplift, but it would be ill advised to presume that this will translate directly to clubs’ turnover. I suspect a fair proportion will be equally split, another fair slice to be shared on league position, and then another slice based on Live TV games, so there will be a continuing polarisation toward the usual Sky favourites. That said, I guess it is reasonable to assume Everton will see a 50% uplift on average to our own turnover, raising it to £180mish...then, it will just take us 5 years to give the increase to agents and players. What goes around comes around!
Andy Amey
19 Posted 10/02/2015 at 20:46:10
The real question, not just for Everton, is how can the massive cash input be stopped leaking out into the playersÂ’ car park?

It is obscene that with this investment into football we have clubs going out of business.

Bill Gall
20 Posted 10/02/2015 at 21:02:10
All extra monies are a bonus, but as it is not going to be in effect until 2016-17 season this means performance monies are to be determined by at the end of the 2015-16 season .

With the prospect of no European games to distract us (unless we win the Europa League, and stranger things have happened) there is no way we should consider selling any of our younger players – ie, Coleman, Barkley, Stones or Besic to raise money for funds.

We will have to rebuild at the end of this season with IMO a quality attack minded midfielder , if Mirallas leaves another speedy goalscoring wing player and a proven keeper.

The other point is if BK and the Board are going to give RM a large amount to spend as despite RM supposedly having contacts all over Europe, he has not really shown a lot of vision in his present signings with the majority of his money spent on one player.

Brian Hennessy
21 Posted 10/02/2015 at 21:54:09
What bugs me most about Sky/BT is, a few years ago Sky had the rights to all PL games.

BT enter the market and take some of the matches off Sky yet the price we pay to Sky continues to increase for a decreased amount of games.

Wayne Smyth
22 Posted 10/02/2015 at 21:46:06
This is good news for us and for the league.

Finishing high up in the league is now equivalent cash-wise to a good CL run. What this means - and what weÂ’re seeing even this season - is that average PL clubs have similar spending power as many of the top tier clubs abroad.

ItÂ’s going to mean that there will be less quality difference between the traditional sky 6 and the rest, and hopefully it will be more likely that an Everton or Southampton will be able to challenge near the top of the league.

To be honest IÂ’d rather the club use a lot of the money to reduce debt and improve the stadium than pay top whack for players and ramp salary levels up even more than they are.

Colin Glassar
23 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:08:09
Cheers Peter, interesting read.
Clive Lewis
24 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:19:38
Well I am fully expecting us to be in the championship by then under Roberto.
Tony Hill
25 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:34:00
IÂ’m not as pessimistic as that Clive but we could have done with better results tonight from Hull and QPR, weÂ’re now 5 points off 18th and if we could squeeze a point tomorrow It would be very welcome.
John Keating
26 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:50:05
10 million a game ?.
2 games we can get Finch Farm back
3 games a second tier on the Park End
6 games a new Main Stand in Bullens Rd
Low interest rates, low steel, labour and raw material prices
Get it done now !
Russell Smith
27 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:34:55
The amount of money currently being paid to PL clubs is already obscene yet we as a club still seem to be struggling along on the bones of our backsides. We should already be able to fund a new ground from the current tv deal, there should be no issues building a new ground with this uplift. Most sane people who win the lottery pay off all their debts and buy a big new house, thereby putting something substantial behind them, they then indulge themselves with flash motors and exotic holidays.

Kenwright should do the same, clear our debt and build us a big new "house" first and foremost so that we have something when this financial bubble bursts, and then with what’s left, which would appear to be a significant amount buy us some flash players. The new deal is over 3 years so if the £180 mill mentioned above is correct then we have £540 million of future income to sort things out.

The players do not need huge new salaries they are already grossly overpaid, even new players coming in should just about rub along on £60k a week. So 20 man squad would cost us £60 mill a year plus manager and back room staff, youngsters etc costing a similar amount leaves us with £180 million over those 3 years to build a ground and bring in new players. Somehow though I doubt anything will happen we will still be paupers and BK will still be looking 24/7 for a buyer, the bubble will burst and nothing will have changed. This is Everton.

Colin Glassar
28 Posted 10/02/2015 at 23:02:57
Plus a few lawn mowers John.
Colin Glassar
29 Posted 10/02/2015 at 23:04:11
Brilliant post Russell. Can you imagine it if BK actually did that? God, theyÂ’d be calling it, "The House That Billy built". He could even turn it into a successful musical
Brian Hennessy
30 Posted 10/02/2015 at 23:13:39
Agree fully Russell, we should be buying a new "house".

Otherwise if this extra cash just pushes up players wages, Liverpool City Centre will be blocked up with Kevin Mirallas style gold Bentleys.

Even relegated players will be able to afford them, shameful....

Dave Kelly
31 Posted 10/02/2015 at 22:55:25
I was fortunate enough to have attended a meeting with Officials of the Premier League as part of the delegation from the Football Supporters Federation in August last year and again in January. Their is further dialogue planned for the future, with a telephone conference call due to take place tomorrow afternoon.

The FSF have argued that ticket prices have risen by 719% since 1989. Or in lay mans terms, a pint in 1989 was £1.08; with an inflation rate rising at the same rate as match tickets it would now cost £8.85. A packet of fags, then £1.51, would now be £12.37.

Clearly, the cost of tickets are no longer sustainable and the beautiful game, the game for the working class, has quickly become the game for corporate clients paying business class prices.

Tomorrow’s game at Stamford Bridge a prime example with a ticket in the Shed Lower priced at £52. How ironic that the ticket has a £10 subsidy, paid for by Everton.

Significant progress has been made with the Premier League. They and the Broadcasters actually accept that fans travelling to away games are an integral part of the game. They make the game very marketable to a global market, some openly admitting that the Premier League product, is a flawed product in the eyes of Broadcasters when Stadiums have row upon row of empty seats.

With home attendances at record high occupancy (95.8%) the only blot on the horizon is the reducing number of supporters attending away games. Yes the usual suspects us/City/United/RS/Spurs/Arsenal etc still sell out in record times. The underlying trend is one of a downward curve.

When you consider clubs like Newcastle and Sunderland, who once travelled in large numbers, now only taking the Lower Bullens it tells you somethingÂ’s not quite right.

In fairness Everton have finally attempted to address the balance, hence the reciprocal agreement with Newcastle and Swansea.

The FSF campaign continues to gather momentum. Less than two years ago when we started off on this journey it would have been beyond the wildest expectations of most for us to have gained as many concessions has we have. The £200,000 a season for three seasons to "enhance the away day experience" the numerous "Road Trips" with free coach travel are all welcome.

We need to ensure that price categorisation doesnÂ’t discriminate against younger fans, with the average age of the Premier League fan at an all time high. Our younger fans are our insurance to secure the future of the game.

We all have a moral responsibility to ensure that we put enough pressure on the decision makers within the game. Starting with our own club, we also need to ensure that like the Players (PFA) the Managers (LMA) that we the fans are organised.

Up the Toffees

Steve Harris
32 Posted 11/02/2015 at 07:23:46
Some really interesting points made. Dave, I think my season ticket in the Upper Bullens was about £60 - £70 in 84-85 and I remember that the price of matchday tickets that season were £4.40 with a free 50p programme thrown in when you walked through the turnstyle! Still seems amazing to me to think that from 1878 to 1984 prices had only got to £4.40 but in the next 30 years it’s risen to £46 for last Saturday’s derby!

The really sickening thing is that you know that all this extra TV money is going to go straight into the players’ and agents’ pockets which means the insane figure of £500,000 a week is just around the corner and it’s probably far too late to try and put a wage cap in place.

Colin Glassar
33 Posted 11/02/2015 at 08:19:17
The sad thing about this deal is what many have already stated I.e. this extra money will just go into players’ and agents’ pockets. There should be a stipulation that part of it is used to reduce ticket prices, make stadium improvements, youth development and grassroots football etc....

The idea that this will be frittered away on trying to satisfy inflated egos and greedy mercenaries is... well... sickening tbh.

Russell Smith
34 Posted 11/02/2015 at 08:35:11
Listened to Peter Scudamore on the radio this morning and he is "unapologetic" that the vast part of the extra money will go on buying and paying players (and no doubt their agents). With such a lack of foresight by Sky’s leaders, is it any wonder that the players will be rubbing their already greedy hands with glee?

If he wants to retain the PL "brand" and keep it the spectacle that they continually advertise it to be, then they need the grounds to be filled to create the atmosphere, including away fans. Therefore he should be insisting that, as a prerequisite of receiving the money, ticket prices have to be lowered to a maximum of £15 at every stadium.

Let’s face it, even at the most expensive grounds, the matchday income is now small beer compared to the Sky monies. The money distribution will still favour these "expensive" grounds as they generally belong to the current top sides so there will be a similar percentage drop in match revenue for all sides.

If Scudamore had any real foresight he could also dictate that every PL team have a squad salary cap, allowing teams to pay what they want for the best talent but meaning that the journey men and mercenaries making up the remainder of the squad do not receive rewards beyond their talent or effort. This would have more impact than FFP, which with these new sky monies, will take the top teams even further away from the remainder.

With this type of system some players would have to move squads to earn more money which in turn would lead to a more balanced spread of the best talent and the PL would then really become a spectacle with every team competing on a more level playing field.

Ernie Baywood
35 Posted 11/02/2015 at 10:38:11
The Premier League’s FFP rules were supposed to do exactly that, though I’ve not seen anything since they announced it. In theory it was supposed to restrict clubs to just a £4M wage bill increase per year with the clubs sitting below a certain wage bill allowed to come up to a reasonable level.

ItÂ’s just about the only hope. Clubs can use this windfall to clear debts and look at becoming sustainable. For us that clearly means a stadium that produces the matchday revenue we need to compete.

As it is, nothing seems to have changed. The clubs are spending their windfall. The day the rights payments donÂ’t increase by a large percentage weÂ’ll see clubs dropping away. The classic case of a bubble bursting.

Bill Gall
36 Posted 11/02/2015 at 13:36:19
On the subject of greedy agents – do the clubs in talks of signing one of the agent’s players still have to pay the agent? I seem to remember a couple of seasons ago one of the London clubs’ chairman refusing to pay an agent as he said that was his clients, ie, the player’s responsibility.
Ian Burns
37 Posted 11/02/2015 at 13:49:13
Russell (#34), Great post – that sums up the whole situation as far as I am concerned and Scudamore needs sitting down by some real fans and told the facts of life as seen from the terraces.
Liam Reilly
38 Posted 11/02/2015 at 14:17:25
Even an idiot could create a very attractive brand with that injection of cash. There can be no more excuses from BK and Co.

Build a ground and build out the team and stop the shite about being paupers.

Andrew Ellams
39 Posted 11/02/2015 at 14:36:28
What these agreements and the TV scheduling tells us is that the fans in Asia now count more than the 300,000+ people that actually attend the Premier League matches every week.
Alan Williams
40 Posted 11/02/2015 at 14:36:23
Liam, your simplistic logic like most on here is completely flawed for the simple reason every team in the EPL gets this money so the status quo remains the same.

What EFC need to do as a business is refuse to pass all of this increase on to the wage bill and clearly invest in to infrastructure. Build the best possible stadium and go the extra mile in the experience of the new ground and tell fans they too need to buy in to this as it may well mean the odd players leaves (for the correct price) and the higher wage will not be met so until we get the match day income streams up and naturally stay in the EPL over a period in the new stadium then we can release more capital in to the wage bill.

Fans expectations need to reflect the clubÂ’s direction, long-term business plan against short-term cap-in-hand... ItÂ’s the way we can only operate in the future without a sugar daddy, itÂ’s a brave Chairman that states this publically but overall its best for EFC long term.

Jay Wood
41 Posted 11/02/2015 at 14:40:46
Eye watering numbers.

Those who continue to say "it will all end in tears" belong to the flat earth society. These links clearly show which way revenue for the PL is heading.

Link

And the worldÂ’s most influential agent, RonaldoÂ’s Jorge Mendes, agrees.

Link

With this deal alone, all 20 PL will be elevated into the top 30 richest clubs in the world ... even Burnley are Â’richerÂ’ than Ajax! Go figure...

For Everton, this represents a very real opportunity to fund our own stadium (or renovation of Goodison ... I wish!) without going around cap in hand to dubious third parties. Has BK and the board the nounce to do it...?

It also reinforces how ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL it is to maintain our PL status. To those who have advocated we could benefit from time out of the PL (yes! they exist), get yourself sectioned ...

Michael Kenrick
42 Posted 11/02/2015 at 14:48:46
I was wondering about how the overseas markets figure into this deal, Andrew, but LyndonÂ’s story makes it clear these packages are for domestic football coverage only. So you may have to reiterate your Asian concerns in due course.

Although the overseas rights go to a whole lot of other countries in addition to Asia. It would interesting to know how much the US market has jumped since NBC made every single Premier League game (not just the UK televised ones) available on live broadcast in the States.

Liam Reilly
43 Posted 11/02/2015 at 15:09:44
Andrew # 38
"like most on here is completely flawed for the simple reason every team in the EPL gets this money so the status quo remains the same."

YouÂ’re assuming that IÂ’m talking about a UK brand. This influx of cash compared to the German, Spanish and Dutch leagues puts the top sides in the UK (Everton amongst them) on a very different level.

This is the time to build a new stadium and the foundation for the future by targeting global markets for endorsements and sponsorships.

We were left behind at the advent of the premier league; this is an opportunity to make back some ground.

Michael Kenrick
44 Posted 11/02/2015 at 15:13:32
For those interested, NBC are Only At Half Way Mark In Premier League TV Deal; NBC Gets Ready To Face Challenge To Retain Rights.

That article includes this table which shows the escalation rates for Domestic and Overseas: Alt_Text

Not sure how this jives with the current total being reported as £3bn...

Brian Hill
45 Posted 11/02/2015 at 15:18:49
As long as Kenwright and his puppet-masters control Everton, nothing will change.
Tony McNulty
46 Posted 11/02/2015 at 15:53:06
Interesting to see how people interpret this deal differently. For me, talk of relegation for us this season is crass. The quality of the personnel is simply too good for that to happen. If I am proved wrong then I will apologise to fellow Evertonians at the end of the season on these pages.

Turning then to the new deal, as some have said, we are still no better off than our Premier League peers. Any Premier League team can now spend lots of money on players. So relatively, things will not change that much.

So what might this mean for us? I am unsure whether it means that Bill will be more likely to retain the club (there is more cash, and less urgency for "investment") or less likely (some business person looking to exploit the potential of an investment return). I would worry if it is the latter; yet do we want the current ownership structure to continue, which will mean more and more treading water unless Roberto works some miracles?

Lyndon Lloyd
47 Posted 11/02/2015 at 16:55:41
Michael (42), viewing figures in the US are definitely up since NBCÂ’s coverage kicked in and this season is 15% up on last. A quick Google around looking for the exact increase from FoxÂ’s coverage (itÂ’s about doubled, I think) revealed a few articles mentioning how theyÂ’re now higher than numbers watching the NHL and pondering how much NBC, having made the "EPL" so much more attractive, will have to bid to keep them.

The consensus seems to be that Fox won’t want to get outbid again, ESPN are interested and that beIN Sports could swoop in and gazump the lot of they really want to. Pretty sure the US rights will sell for a lot more than £250m this time and that the £2bn for global rights for the current period will also go up quite a bit. It’s quite possible the whole thing goes for well over £8bn (domestic and overseas combined) this time which is just staggering.

Mike Childs
48 Posted 11/02/2015 at 16:50:50
I sure hope NBC hangs on to the rights. Commentators across the board are better than Fox's. The live sport extra that allows to watch who you want. All though I would imagine whoever wins the rights will carry on that practice.

NBC's only mistake giving airtime to Men in Blazers.

Tim Greeley
49 Posted 11/02/2015 at 17:36:30
Yes, NBC needs to hold on to these rights. The coverage is excellent and the web options are irreplaceable. It seems we Americans have access to Everton matches that some of you over in the UK don't even have - that is crazy.

I wake up early with my kids and I have EPL games on one the TVs in the background all morning, keeping me somewhat sane as I get bullied into submission by a 5-year-old and almost-two-year-old! Especially in the winter.

ESPN used to only show one, maybe two games a weekend, then no post-game, just cut right to Akron Tech vs. Northwestern Missouri A&M in a Mid-American Conference showdown!

Now we just need to get that Kate Abdo to NBC and all will be right with the SOCCER world. Some more Everton wins requested, as well. Also, if Tim Howard wants to retire to become full time analyst, wouldn't be against it! :)

Lenny Kingman
50 Posted 11/02/2015 at 20:47:37
Unsustainable and BT will be the first to fold. Their expectation of revenues for their Champions league coverage, for the ludicrous price paid, are way overblown. Now they have been enmeshed into the Premier league circus they are on the highway to oblivion.

Sky and the rest of the sycophants will go the same way eventually, taking the game with it, when people wake up to the real play The obscene amounts of money paid to clubs, players and their leeching agents will create a black hole from which there will be no coming back.

Chris James
51 Posted 12/02/2015 at 08:43:57
This sort of money should basically safeguard the financial future of every Premier League club for decades to come.

This is the opportunity for football 'clubs' to make themselves sustainable businesses. Sadly I suspect what will happen is the already vastly overpaid agents and players will underwrite a new golden Bentley or two and most clubs will remain on the edge of financial ruin,

Colin Glassar
52 Posted 12/02/2015 at 09:01:49
I read somewhere (probably on here) that with the international TV rights this could go as high as £8bn? (See Lyndon #47). Insane!
David Ellis
53 Posted 13/02/2015 at 02:38:35
I think it is funny when people say they are "against" these kind of deals. I too long for yesteryear when I could pay 5 quid to sit in the Bullens Road stand and watch Everton win the league (along with around 25,000 others) and players earning £50k a year - a decent wage back then, about as much as a solicitor or GP.

But.....in the current global world if Premier League were not at the top of the pile someone else would be. Remember when Serie A was briefly king of the world – all the top English players went there – it was like the World Cup every week. When English Clubs got back into Europe, they were battered in the early 1990s.

Just talk to Dutch or Scottish fans. Their once proud clubs are now also-rans. Burnley bigger than Ajax. Imagine Falkirk or NAC Breda being bigger than Man Utd... that is what this deal means.

Italy is now suffering the same fate and if this goes on it will gradually pull down the Germans and the Spanish. Maybe Bayern, Barca and Real Madrid will manage to avoid the fate of Ajax and Rangers, but I am not so sure.

It becomes a virtual circle for us and vicious circle for them. The best players come here, the global interest increases... the more money the Premier League gets... so the better players continue to join. Eventually there will only be one – and it will be the Premier League.

David Barks
54 Posted 13/02/2015 at 04:50:13
Sorry but it's not unsustainable. It's entertainment and in high demand. Just as Apple can charge whatever they want for their devices, even though everyone knows it will be out of date in 6 months. Not all business plays by the same rules, especially when it's global.
Ernie Baywood
55 Posted 13/02/2015 at 11:12:38
Jay Wood #41 Those who continue to say "it will all end in tears" belong to the flat earth society. These links clearly show which way revenue for the PL is heading

No, people who say it will all end in tears are very aware that the numbers are going up at a massive rate.

Fact is, growth like that isn't sustainable. How many new markets are left to explore? How much are people prepared to pay? Clubs will now go spending this increase (and probably the next one too). I'm not saying that Sky will go all "ITV Digital" on us. They don't need to. All it will take is the increase to slow down for a few clubs to go under. It's the only thing covering their costs.

Thing is, if you were an owner right now you would absolutely gamble anything to stay in the PL because you know the rights will likely go up again next time. Bill, for example, knows that all he has to do is keep this club in the league and his revenues and club worth will multiply every few years. We can't go down but who gives a fuck what we actually achieve? It would take tens or even hundreds of millions to get top 4 but if you miss it's wasted. Survival is achievable on a relative shoestring.

What odds he finds his fabled buyer when only the desperate are still prepared to take the punt?

Colin Glassar
56 Posted 15/02/2015 at 13:00:58
If any further proof was needed about journos being the mouthpieces of the top clubs, just watch today's Sunday supplement. When asked about the increased TV deal and should clubs reinvest in grassroots footy and be more socially responsible, all three of the invited journos squirmed, stammered and twisted only to say, basically, No.

According to them, it's the fans' fault when players are bought for exorbitant fees and paid outrageous wages when many club employees are on minimum wage. It's also the fans' fault for watching footy on Sky and BT. It's also the fans' fault for flocking to the grounds (95-96%) to watch their teams. So, after all, as football is a business, the owners have fuck all reason to rein in their expenditure nor limit wages for their overpaid prima donnas.

Fuck 'em all. Rant over.

James Hughes
57 Posted 15/02/2015 at 13:08:16
Colin #56, good rant, mate, There was an football agent on Jeremy Vine the day this was announced.

She basically said footballers deserve everything and we are lucky to have them grace our lives and cheer up our sad, miserable existence. That the agreed 5% levy to be paid to grass roots canÂ’t be a proper contract and we should all stop moaning. DidnÂ’t mention who she represented though,

Jay Wood
58 Posted 15/02/2015 at 14:07:08
Ernie @ 55 – those saying it will all end in tears are being very explicit.

I shouldn’t think even the wildest optimist considers the leap in TV revenue in the last two deals will be exponentially reflected in the next or future deals. It doesn’t have to be. Modest, equal, or even lesser deals will not be a ball-breaker. The sums garnered in the existing deals, over – what? – a 5-6 year period, will help those clubs already sat at the top table to cement their place even more.

"Growth like that isn’t sustainable" you claim, but the North American market alone has plenty of growth (and bucks!) in it yet. Even in ’lesser’ markets like Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, with large upwardly mobile, young and ambitious populations, there is plenty of potential growth.

Now a potential game changer may well be when clubs start negotiating their own media deals and offer something like paid live streaming which goes directly into their coffers. But that would inevitably lead to the mega clubs cornering that market and becoming even richer. That could result in an even poorer distribution of the media monies than exists, for example, in Spain and their club by club media deal which sees RM and Barca obscenely rewarded and the rest nowhere.

In addition, if the clubs wanted exclusive rights and control over their media rights, I can’t imagine they would not be interested in maintaining their own media station, so inevitably they would still be beholden to using the existing established media outlets, such as Sky and BT. The current deal at least evicts that.

So, I continue to disagree with you and others who claim "it will all end in tears." Yes, there is a danger some clubs will go under... but it’s highly improbable that it will be a club in, or yo-yoing between the PL and the Championship.

Ernie Baywood
59 Posted 16/02/2015 at 09:43:44
If clubs negotiate their own deals I would imagine we would see quite a few clubs go straight under. What would we do?

Anyway, that's not why I came back to this thread. It was to post this table.

Alt_Text

Jay Wood
60 Posted 16/02/2015 at 11:04:45
Super interesting table Ernie ... and these are last year’s figures which don’t include the present or next TV deal.

Even Cardiff in 20th position earned more than double of any team in the Bundesliga, the entire French league, all but the top 3 in Italy and huge amounts more than the entire Spanish league other than RM and Barcelona.

The table reinforces my belief that the PL is on a global scale the most followed and thus marketable ’product’ and it is not going ’to end in tears’ any time soon.

And you help me reinforce another point in relation to my hypothetical, (re: the PL status quo only ending if club’s negotiated their own media deals).

Look at the gross imbalance in La Liga. In the wake of last week’s deal a Spanish official came out and said Spain needed a more equitable TV deal or risk seeing the likes of Messi and Ronaldo plying their trade in England.

Clubs aren’t stupid. The majority will insist on collective bargaining rather than allowing clubs to negotiate their own deals.


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