#4: The new Premier League TV deal, and what it means for football publishers
Did the Bubble ever exist? Well at least for now, it hasn't burst - putting the Premier League in the strongest position it has ever been in
This week, the Premier League announced that it had sold off its domestic broadcasting TV rights until 2029.
Sky are once again the dominant partner, taking four of the five available packages, leaving TNT Sports with the one remaining option. Amazon are now off the table, and it’s unclear as to whether DAZN were ever actually on it.
New Premier League TV deal - the details
Four-year agreement starting in 2025 running until the summer of 2029
Deal is worth £6.7Bn, or the equivalent of £1.675Bn per season
Represents a 4% increase on current £1.66Bn deal which runs for one more season
267 matches broadcast live every season, up from the current 200 - dragging down the cost per match for broadcasters
Provisions for more Friday matches, as well as 2pm Sunday kick-offs for teams competing in the Europa League
How does it match up to other European domestic TV rights deals?
EPL will ensure they remain the dominant force as a result of this agreement
German Bundesliga best-placed behind EPL but face renewal in 25/26
La Liga has two more seasons to run before it will be forced to renew
Serie A recently negotiated a small decrease in their renewal until 2029 with Sky Italy and DAZN
Ligue 1 are scrambling to get a deal for next season after bids failed to meet their reserve target
What does this mean for European football?
If you didn’t know it already, the EPL’s deal solidifies their position as the dominant football league and one which will earn up to 50% more than their rivals each and every season until 2029 - and that’s best case for the other Big Five.
It simply means that the spending power of the team finishing bottom of the Premier League will likely be on par - from a broadcast revenue generation model, at least - with the likes of Juventus, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
From that perspective, this is just no longer a level playing field. I’ve cited in the past that the EPL is becoming closer to the NFL than a league playing part in a competitive European environment.
And that’s before we get to overseas rights deals. I won’t go into the details, I’ll merely tap the sign.
The gap here is so wide, and so difficult to close, that it’s virtually impossible that the EPL is dethroned as the leading revenue-generating league in the world at any point in this decade.
What does this mean for football news publishers?
Unfortunately, the nature of the modern, changeable football fan means that they navigate towards where the best players play, and where the standard of the football is best.
And the players themselves will always navigate to where the money is. It was rarely ever about prestige and history of the club they play for, and it’s even less the case now. Talent will continue to be swept up and dropped into the Premier League. And having founded, built and now run FootballTransfers, I can say with certainty that where players go, more than what they do when they get there, drives a huge portion of interest in the younger demographics.
And thus for football news publishers, there is an inexorable downward cycle in respect of some teams, and some markets. Since Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo departed La Liga at the end of the previous decade, the decline in interest in the UK for the league, and these teams, is palpable.
The number of average monthly searches on Google for Real Madrid and Barcelona has been on the decline ever since. Ditto Bayern Munich, Juventus, Milan and Inter. As the talent drain continues from these leagues, the relative interest in the performance of the teams goes with it.
And so news publishers are forced to recalibrate their content - on search at least - based on what users are looking for. It will likely mean ever bigger volumes for the Premier League but by that same token, increased competition among the publishers for whom English football drives the majority of their traffic.
Conclusion
To be clear - the Premier League, in their new deal, are giving away much more, in order to earn simply a little more. But it’s a sign of the times in the broadcast rights space, and being able to secure an uplift of any kind sets them apart from their competitors.
And publishers can expect global interest to even more centralised to the self-professed Greatest League In the World for the foreseeable future.