Premier League Domestic Rights rolled over

[BcastCornwall]

Rather than summarise here's the whole article from 'The Sunday Telegraph'

[Rob]

Link to the article for anyone having trouble reading that image... (paywall)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...hts-crash/

[Hatton Cross]

Good. Forget the free marketeer bleating and wailing about this being anti-competitve.
Nice to see there could be a bit of loyalty and thanks from PL to the main three live broadcasters for stepping up since the resumption last June, with a painless rubber stamping of the existing packages to the same broadcasters leaving the sport without an potentially damaging money raking bloodbath blind auction.

And, anything that totally pees off DAZN or worse, Eleven Sports by locking them out for another three years can only be a good thing.

[Brekkie]

Are Eleven Sports still a thing? I'd have thought That's TV would be more likely to win Premier League rights than them?

It is perhaps the sensible move - couldn't read the article but I'm guessing the proposal is if you pay the same as last time you keep what you have now? Guess though it means for the first time no additional matches, but I think despite all games being live the last year every indication is the Premier League don't want that to become the norm. They should certainly add a final day package though.

[Rdd]

Having read the article, it appears this is an idea being talked about (probably among a range of ideas) rather than a signed off decision of the Premier League board.

The issue is that if there are others (DAZN mentioned in the article) interested in getting on board, it shuts them out. Nonetheless for that very reason I’d expect it to be a one-time-only, special-circumstances-of-Covid-19 offer, rather than saying Sky/BT/Amazon now have the rights for all time.

[johnnyboy]

Good. Forget the free marketeer bleating and wailing about this being anti-competitve.
Nice to see there could be a bit of loyalty and thanks from PL to the main three live broadcasters for stepping up since the resumption last June, with a painless rubber stamping of the existing packages to the same broadcasters leaving the sport without an potentially damaging money raking bloodbath blind auction.

And, anything that totally pees off DAZN or worse, Eleven Sports by locking them out for another three years can only be a good thing.

Not sure having a closed shop is a great idea.

After all, am I the only one who thinks that the ITV franchises should be competed for once a decade?

The PL and any other sport is entitled to charge as much for its IP and other assets as possible.

[Brekkie]

The trouble is more broadcasters doesn't drive down costs for customers, so in that respect the customers don't necessarily lose out by shutting out DAZN or other new players, even if they did initially come in at a price which undercuts Sky. We've seen with BT how it went from "Free" to somewhere around £16-£25 a month today.


The ITV argument is for another thread but this situation is a bit different really. It's also not shutting out current right holders or recent right holders, unlike the IOC deal with Eurosport which meant the BBC didn't even have the opportunity to bid for the full rights to the Olympics they had held for so long.

[Matthew]

Link to the article for anyone having trouble reading that image... (paywall)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...hts-crash/

Full text for those without access:

Premier League scrambles to avoid TV rights crash
League in talks with broadcasters and Government about rolling over existing deals with Sky, BT and Amazon

The Premier League is in talks to scrap its television rights auction in favour of rolling over existing deals with Sky, BT and Amazon, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Football bosses are in sensitive discussions with the broadcasters and the Government about the potentially controversial move as they seek to avoid the risk of a hefty blow to the value of the rights from Covid.

[mod]Please don't copy and paste entire paywall articles on the forum. Two or three paragraphs is fine, provided you link to the article.[/mod]

[Robertclark125]

But surely the governing bodies are free to decide for themselves, who they want to have as their broadcaster. If I were to set up a new governing body in Scotland for Dominoes, for instance, and I decided I wanted to get Channel 4 to show it, and approached them, without inviting others, then that's my choice. It's my competition, surely I'm entitled to choose a broadcast partner, as opposed to a tender?

[Brekkie]

It does happen probably more than we realise, though I expect some contracts have the right for the existing broadcaster to have exclusive discussions before rights go out to tender or the right to match any rival bid. The Rugby World Cup is possibly the highest profile deal lately where World Rugby wanted to reward ITV for their host coverage of the 2015 event by striking a deal for 2019/2023.

Sky I think have similarly extended their Football League deals without the rights going out to tender, and their exclusive F1 deal was announced with no other broadcasters getting the chance on the first week of C4 airing live coverage - probably an example where it was unfair and anti-competitive as it did exclude a current rights holder. You never hear of Wimbledon rights being put out to tender either - it's usually just a discussion with the BBC.

[Rdd]

It’s a bit different for the Premier League because of the market position they hold, they can have the power of life and death over pay TV companies, Sky may have gone under in the early 1990s if the Premier League hasn’t come along; Setanta in its original U.K. incarnation went under because they overbid and weren’t able to afford the rights, ESPN sold up once they lost the rights. Moreover it has suited the Premier League to have a tender, the money’s only ever gone one way until recently. For a while the Premier League were subject to commitments they made the European Commission about how they sold their rights to get them to drop an investigation against them, although those commitments are now long expired presumably the U.K. competition regulators could open a new investigation if it were required.

[RR]

But surely the governing bodies are free to decide for themselves, who they want to have as their broadcaster. If I were to set up a new governing body in Scotland for Dominoes, for instance, and I decided I wanted to get Channel 4 to show it, and approached them, without inviting others, then that's my choice. It's my competition, surely I'm entitled to choose a broadcast partner, as opposed to a tender?

In the past the Premiership rights have been regulated, on the basis of them being by far the most important rights for subscription TV, and this led to them not being allowed to be sold to just one buyer, and for not longer than three years. Initially the body regulating them was the Office of Fair Trading and the UK's Restrictive Practices Court, and more recently the equivalents at EU level. Given the latter has fallen away this time, it will be back with UK bodies as to decide what is allowed to happen.

It is only really this set of rights that is regulated in this way (in the UK) - at one point the ownership of the subscription rights for the output of the main film companies was also under investigation, but the rise of Amazon and Netflix streamers has put that very much in the shade.

[BcastCornwall]

A little snippet that might be useful heard through my usually reliable contact.

The agreement might be in place this week for like for like continuation. Any additional matches offered over and beyond the current pre-C19 adjusted packages for 2019-22 are to be auctioned competitively, a decision on this aspect of any 2022-5 cycle could be some weeks ahead.

Any packages refused by a current broadcaster would also be subjected to a competitive auction process.

[News Engineer]

https://twitter.com/clmmcrthy/status/138...15010?s=24

Industry journal now confirming the Sunday Telegraph story.

[Brekkie]

Exclusively revealing something revealed two days earlier? Does this include Match of the Day?