Late on Monday evening, the Premier League confirmed that it had now agreed a new, record, £6.7 billion domestic television rights deal that covers the upcoming four seasons beginning in 2025/26.
The new deal naturally features long time PL broadcaster Sky, and TNT, with a deal in place to now show 270 live games in a season. As part of the deal that was struck, the BBC will continue to show highlights on Match of the Day, MotD2, Football Focus plus further digital rights for their online services.
The deal is described as the ‘largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK’ and although plenty will be very pleased to hear that this has now been done and dusted, others will be wondering if they even want another subscription service, let alone what kind of price rise they could now have in store for them.
The 3pm Saturday blackout remains in place despite the discussions that took place, but every Sunday 2pm spot will now be shown. Sky secured four of the five packages on offer, so will show at least 215 matches, including 5.30pm Saturday, 2pm Sunday, 4.30pm kick offs – plus evening games on Monday and Friday, and three midweek rounds.
TNT have secured at least 52 games, including all 12.30pm kick offs on Saturday – and two midweek rounds.
As part of the new deal, Sky Sports will also show all ten matches on the final day of each of the relevant seasons.
Existing and current broadcaster, Amazon, did not secure a package for this period after they saw their own 20 game a season deal extended until 2024/25 because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The new record deal is the first tender process for the rights since 2018, and not only does it represent a 4% uplift in value, it also runs for an extra 12 months which the PL believe will help ‘provide financial certainty for clubs throughout professional football until at least 2029.”
The uplift will no doubt help eventually offset the outcome of the current discussions about a greater share of revenue being spread with clubs in the Championship and below.
Richard Masters, PL chief executive officer, explained.
“The outcome of this process underlines the strength of the Premier League and is testament to our clubs, players and managers who continue to deliver the world’s most competitive football in full stadiums, and to supporters, who create an unrivalled atmosphere every week.”
It will be interesting to see how fans react to these changes, and even more football saturation on the telly box, as although fans continue to pay through the nose to support their teams, the new deal just continues the endless cycle of inconvenience and late fixture changes.
Unless, of course, they have finally got their acts together and will give more than a proverbial five minutes notice of which games will be screened.