“The new Premier League TV rights contract is amazing” – Kommersant FM

The English Football Premier League has signed a record TV rights contract of €7.8 billion for four years. The buyers were Sky Sports, TNT Sports and British Broadcasting Corporation. The new agreement will come into force in 2025. The Daily Mail reports this. It is noted that the Premier League was satisfied with the terms of the deal, as it was able to sell the rights to live broadcasts with a 4 percent increase in their value compared to the previous contract. For details, see Kommersant FM sports commentator Vladimir Osipov.

The Premier League’s new TV rights contract is amazing. But what does this amount mean – almost €8 billion – which is so difficult to comprehend? First of all, this is stability for teams that play in the Premier League. To be honest, many clubs from the European championships never dreamed of such a thing. They need to strive for European competition or actively sell their promising players – otherwise they will not survive.

And here, not even the most serious Premier League club of the level of Bournemouth or Nottingham Forest receives at least €100 million a year from television alone, not to mention the giants. In fact, such a contract buries the project called “Super League”, which some billionaires still dream about.

With such income, it is simply unprofitable for Premier League clubs to get involved in dubious activities. Especially considering that in the future the amount of television rights will only grow. However, other European leagues will follow English football, says football manager and owner of the Portsmouth club Roman Dubov:

“Great Britain began to develop earlier in terms of football and is one step ahead of other countries and will try to maintain its position. But I don’t think all other leagues will die. There is an interesting new television contract in Spain. The Bundesliga remains second in most respects. And in areas such as attendance, the Bundesliga is ahead of the English Premier League.”

But it will be difficult to catch up with the Premier League. The fact is that the British are actively selling television rights to other countries. For example, in the USA, where football is developing by leaps and bounds, Roman Dubov is sure:

In America, the number of children who play soccer today exceeds all other leagues combined—about 70% play soccer.”

The World Cup, which will be held in 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico, will raise the popularity of football overseas to a new level. This will certainly increase the cost of the Premier League’s television rights. Moreover, the American market is far from the only one where English football sells well.

For example, the Scandinavian countries bring almost €400 million to the league annually. In Russia, the Match holding was going to pay the Premier League for television rights an astronomical sum by our standards – about €20 million. Sanctions got in the way. Although in our country the audience for this content is not as wide as in Europe or America, the head of the Telesport company Pyotr Makarenko told Kommersant FM:

“England is perhaps the most popular among the top 5 leagues. At important games, the audience reached 1 million. Our largest audience is traditionally the World Cup and the European Football Championship, the Olympic Games.”

So the loss of the Premier League did not become a problem for Russia, besides, those who watched English football before the sanctions continue to watch it now through numerous pirated Internet sites. However, the English Premier League hardly noticed the loss of those €20 million that now do not come from our country. By the way, as for Russia, our championship in terms of the price of television rights is exactly 25 times lower than the English one.

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