2023-12-25 23:30:00
Where football is traditionally played over the Christmas holidays, Europe’s highest-paying television deal was signed a few weeks ago. The new contract, valid from the 2025/26 to 2028/29 season, secures the Premier League the equivalent of 7.8 billion euros. A windfall that the clubs in the other top European leagues can only look at with envy.
“This result underlines the strength of the Premier League,” said Richard Masters, happily commenting on the sale of the broadcast rights for the Premier League, which he heads as Chief Executive. In a difficult market environment, the English league managed to achieve an increase of four percent compared to the status quo, while at the same time the monetary gap to other European leagues is increasing. The lucrative business was made possible because both linear and nonlinear providers turned on the money. The pay TV broadcasters Sky Sports and TNT Sports acquired the five live broadcast packages, while the public broadcaster BBC Sport secured the highlights of all games. This means that at least 267 of the 380 games per season will be shown live: Sky shows 215 games and 52 on TNT.
The signs continue to point to growth in England. “We have already enjoyed record crowds and record attendances in recent years – and we know that even more people will turn to the Premier League in the future,” explains league boss Masters.
Developments in the other top leagues look less rosy: the traditional Serie A in Italy recently did not even make half as much as the English through the sale of its television rights. Naples owner Aurelio De Laurentiis complained at the time that 900 million euros per year was “a defeat for Italian football”. The amount is below that of the current Series A contract, which runs until 2024. Another problem for the Italians: The new TV rights deal is valid until 2028/29 and thus consolidates the gap to the financially strong Premier League.
The Spanish La Liga also does not reach these spheres despite the driving forces Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The contract, which has been in force since the 2022/23 season, provides for almost a billion euros per year, which is below the value of the expired TV rights contract (1.1 billion per season). In France, the Ligue 1 tender in October remained without an offer at all. Nobody was prepared to pay the requested amount of around one billion euros. One of the packages would have included the two most important live games per match day. Cost: 580 million euros.
The German Football League (DFL) will receive 1.1 billion euros annually from its contract concluded in 2021 – around 850 million less than the Premier League. The tender for 2025 to 2029 will begin in the first quarter of 2024 in a market environment that is consolidating at a lower financial level. The pay broadcaster Sky, which wants to remain a partner of the DFL, has announced its interest. In return, one might demand a better situation, such as a later “Sportschau” (ARD). Sky sports director Charly Classen recently argued in this direction in an interview with the industry magazine “dwdl”: “Because the pay-TV partners finance over 80 percent of the bill.” The ARD, through sports coordinator Axel Balkausky, has announced little understanding of this demand: By taking this step, the DFL would risk excluding “large sections of the population from timely reporting on TV,” he told “Sportbild”. In Austria, TV rights to the live games are held by Sky until the 2025/26 season. Around 40 million euros per season are rumored.
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