Sky Sports and BT have won the rights to screen live Barclays Premier League matches from 2013 in a record-breaking new deal worth more than £3 billion.
BSkyB has retained the majority of the rights to broadcast live coverage of English football’s top flight, but BT has made a surprising move into the pay-TV sports market by securing two packages and will screen live matches for the first time.
The new three-year deal means that ESPN, which set up its UK channel in 2009 following the demise of Setanta Sports, has lost its live rights.
Sky will continue its long established association with the Premier League, a relationship that will stretch into its 24th consecutive season thanks to this new deal, but it has lost out on a significant amount of first choice matches to their new rivals.
BT have long been rumoured as a potentially serious competitor to Sky and this investment appears to suggest big plans ahead from the company, while a rumoured bid from Qatari-based broadcaster Al Jazeera either failed to materialised or was not successful.
The seven individual packages – five of 26 matches and two of 12 matches – totalling 154 matches were awarded on the following basis:
– BSkyB has secured packages B, C, D, E and F – totalling 116 matches per season.
– BT has secured packages A and G – totalling 38 matches per season.
The deal, which raised £3.018bn, represents a remarkable 70% increase on the current deal shared between Sky and ESPN, worth £1.8bn.
Under the next three year rights cycle, a total of 154 live matches will be shown, which is 16 more than currently broadcast, and equates to more than 40% of all Premier League matches.
Sky were awarded the maximum number of matches that it could bid for under the new rights tender, as no single broadcaster is allowed to have more than 116 matches per season.
Sky Sports will continue to be the UK’s leading Premier League broadcaster with its live matches increasing from 115 to 116 per season from 2013.
BSkyB, which has built its pay-TV empire on the back of live top flight football, will pay £760 million per year for the five packages of live rights for each of the three seasons of the new Premier League agreement between 2013 and 2016.
They have retained the rights to screen matches under its Super Sunday and Monday Night Football brands, but has lost some of the rights to broadcast a selection of the head-to-head matches between the top teams.
The live rights are inclusive across all platforms – including satellite, cable, IPTV, online and mobile.
In addition to TV, Sky customers will continue to benefit from live Premier League coverage through Sky Go on PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets and games consoles.
Coverage will also be made available on Sky’s new internet TV service, NOW TV, which launches later this year.
Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s Chief Executive, said: “This is a good result for our customers and for our business.”
“It means that Sky Sports remains the home of Premier League football and that viewers will continue to enjoy our live and exclusive coverage until at least 2016.
“We have never offered greater depth and breadth of coverage on Sky Sports, with unprecedented live action right across the schedule.
“At the same time we’re pushing ahead with more original British content, extending our leadership as the UK’s favourite triple play provider, and launching our new internet TV service, NOW TV, which will give us even more ways to distribute our content.
“In what was a very competitive tender process, we are pleased to have secured the combination of rights that we wanted, providing certainty for us and our customers.
“Whilst the cost is higher, we have capacity for this increase through the combination of excellent work on cost efficiency across the business and choices over other future spending.
“As a result, we remain confident of delivering our financial plans, in line with our expectations, unchanged, in each year of the new deal.”
Barney Francis, Managing Director of Sky Sports, adds: “The Premier League has never been more popular with our customers so it’s excellent news that Sky Sports viewers will continue to enjoy the biggest and best games, including Super Sunday and Monday Night Football.
“Sky Sports viewers have never had so much choice of high quality action.
“Alongside the Premier League, we have long term agreements in place to show the best in live sport, including UEFA Champions League football, European, Ryder Cup and US tour golf, Test and one-day cricket and Formula One.
“At the same time, we’ll continue to innovate in providing the best coverage possible.”
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An unexpected winner of the live rights auction, BT has picked up a quarter of all live Premier League games from 2013.
They including 18 first choice games as well as 20 other matches, totalling 38 live games per season.
Its live games will mainly air on Saturday lunchtimes, plus 10 midweek evening matches and some matches on Bank Holidays.
BT has confirmed that it will launch a new football-focused channel to show each of its live games, with existing BT Vision customers being able to stream the channel through BT’s fibre-optic broadband network which will offer additional interactive features
The company will will also look to distribute its new channel on other TV platforms, such as Sky and Virgin. Full details and pricing will be published in due course.
By acquiring package A, BT also has the choice of screening a selection of some of the Premier League’s more lucrative matches between the top teams, all of which were previously held exclusively by Sky since the Premier League was formed in 1992.
The telecoms giant currently offers Premier League action to its customers via the Sky Sports channels on its BT Vision platform, but it has never produced its own live sports coverage as a outright broadcaster.
Ian Livingston, Chief Executive, said: “We are pleased to have won these rights and to have secured around half of the best games on offer each season. We look forward to offering football fans real value and great quality using the latest technology.
“BT is already investing £2.5bn in fibre broadband. Securing Premier League rights fits naturally with this, as consumers increasingly want to buy their broadband and entertainment services from a single provider.”
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ESPN failed to win any live packages, meaning the US-based TV sports giant will stop screening Premier League football at the end of the 2012/13 season.
The loss of the rights puts the long term future of its UK operation in some doubt, having built its entry into the UK market following the demise of Setanta Sports.
ESPN has just one season remaining of live Premier League matches, and despite holding other contracts for the FA Cup, Europa League and Aviva Premiership rugby, subscriber numbers are likely to face a big drop following the 2012/13 season.
In a double-blow for ESPN the new rights tender is the Premier League’s first ‘technology-neutral’ auction, which abolishes the mobile highlights package that ESPN has held for the last few years and exploits very successfully through its ESPN Goals mobile app.
An ESPN statement said: “We made a strong bid that reflected the value of the rights to our business, and we thank the Premier League for the chance to participate.
“We’re looking forward to continuing our Premier League coverage next season, and continuing to serve fans with great live sports events and programming including the FA Cup, Europa League, Scottish Premier League, Serie A, Premiership Rugby, Top 14, golf, darts, UFC, NBA and much more.”
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The big winner from the new rights deal is undoubtedly the Premier League itself.
It increased the number of games on offer from 138 to 154 for the new rights cycle, and added an extra package of games.
Following the most exciting climax to a Premier League season ever, combined with intense competition between the competing broadcasters, the cost of the live rights has increased by a staggering 70% to more than £3bn over three seasons.
But the surprise inclusion of telecoms company BT, a relative newcomer to the pay-TV market, caught many analysts by surprise.
Richard Scudamore, Premier League Chief Executive, said the fact BT had secured 18 of the 40 coveted first choice matches would be a “game changer”.
He said in a statement: “The Barclays Premier League continues to provide excellent football and enthralling drama as we saw last season.
“The value this drives for our rightsholders is evident and we are extremely pleased that this has been realised for our UK live rights.
“As ever, the security provided by broadcast revenues will enable our clubs to continue to invest in all aspects of their football activities and plan sustainably for the foreseeable future.
“This deal allows them to keep delivering what fans want; top quality football in some of world’s best club stadia and an increasing focus on and commitment to areas such as Youth Development.
“The continuing support of BSkyB for Premier League football is significant beyond the revenues delivered; the longevity and quality of their commitment has done much for the English game as a whole.
“We are very happy to see this relationship maintained for another three seasons.
“We welcome BT as a new Premier League broadcast partner. They are a substantial British company that is at the leading edge of technology and infra-structure development.
“They are clearly investing in quality content to use on their platforms and when combined with the reach and pull of Premier League football they will deliver new ways in which fans will be able to follow the competition.
“These are exciting times for both the football and media worlds and we should all be proud of the value both industries contribute to the UK culturally and economically.
Scudamore refused to elaborate on any of the other bidders in the process. But ESPN, who entered the UK pay-TV market when Setanta Sports collapsed in June 2009, and Al Jazeera are among those believed to have helped push up the price for Sky and BT to pay for the rights.
“I would also like to place on record the Premier League’s thanks to the numerous other highly credible bidders that showed such interest in the live UK rights.”
Free-to-air Premier League highlights for the same rights period were retained by the BBC last month in a deal that also runs through to 2016.
Near-live rights to delayed coverage of selected games and internet clips rights will be announced in due course.
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Have your say on the new Premier League TV rights deal below…
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Now that there’s going to be 154 Premier League games live, wouldn’t it be a great idea if Sky or BT moves a live game to a Friday night to fill the gap whenever the Super League season is over,
It’s interesting how out of touch Sky and the other football carriers are.If you want to look at cutting edge sports coverage look at Major League Baseball … for a monthly fee you get live streaming as well as archive streaming of EVERY GAME of every team … the viewer gets to choose from a daily list of all live games and can flip back and forth between them at any time. That’s 30 teams playing something like 168 games each and I can see any/all of those games for £20 a month… and baseball is basically played every single day. In other words the fan gets to decide what he wants to watch and also when. That’s in line with the future of broadcasting. Let’s look at the UK … Sky for one splits the games over 2 channels so ya have a money scam right there, and as is said above in the UK you have to ultimately pay for 4 subscriptions … and even then the companies decide what I can and can’t watch, and when I can and can’t watch it.THAT IS SO 1960’s TELEVISION GROW UP. I’ve quit all of Sky except for freesat. It’s a great feeling to get no monthly bill. I watch Arsenal so the few Arsenal games they broadcast I can see at the pub for the cost of a pint per game. AND BY THE WAY … a few years ago you could call on the day and pay a one off price for a football game you wanted to watch. What happened to that? The FA and the regulators could have at least demanded that single game purchases were mandatory if these companies wanted to rake in all that cash at our expense. So I’ve taken up baseball, basketball and the NFL cause they arent out to totally rip me off. I’ll wait till the UK gets in line for football, watch rugby, tennis and other sports. TV Football doesn’t have to be an addiction. Follow a local team in person and pass on the million and billionaires on and off the pitch and in the media and the greedy FA until they treat the fans with respect.
So Sky are paying seventy per cent more for TV coverage of the premier league. As they are a business entity they will have to recoop the extra cost from somewhere, how will they do that? Do you think that this move will generate an increase in subscribers by more than seventy per cent?
I think not! The extra cost will be passed on to the already overcharged subscribers who want to watch premiershi[p football on TV. SKY is just a rip off and it’s high time that their overcharged subscribers started voting with their wallets. Don’t get me started on the leveson inquiry, just shows how greedy and corrupt this organisation is.
Shame about ESPN losing there live matches. Enjoyed their coverage. Gave a fresh approach as it became a bit dull on Sky. Wonder if Stubbsy and co will go off to the new BT channel?
Once again its us the fans that lose out massively here. Premier League doesnt care about the supporters who turn up every week, and yet we will be more out of pocket than before thanks to this ridiculous TV deal.
Instead we will have to pay four seperate subscriptions to watch all the football, compared to a few years ago when you just needed to subscribe to Sky to see all the games.
We have to thank the European Union for the dire situation we find ourselves in now!