The Premier League have finalised negotiations with Sky Sports and TNT Sports for its United Kingdom television rights in a groundbreaking deal worth £6.7 billion deal, covering the next four years.
According to the Guardian, the renewal with trusted broadcast partners runs from the 2025/26 campaign and is poised to stabilise revenues and substantially increase the number of live games televised.
The new deal offers a minimum of 215 live matches on Sky, including all ten fixtures of the final matchday, with the broadcast company securing four of the five packages on sale.
TNT Sports secured the rights to broadcast 52 matches, while the BBC retains Match of the Day after purchasing the rights to a weekly highlights package.
Chief executive of the Premier League, Richard Masters, described the new deal as one that would ‘drive more people to watch and follow the Premier League,’ lauding Sky and TNT as valued partners of the league.
Here are a few takeaways from the TV rights deal.
Expanded broadcast
For the first time, all matches outside of the Saturday 3.00 pm kick-offs will be broadcast live in the UK, introducing an unprecedented level of accessibility for fans.
Marked by increased content and simultaneous midweek matchday broadcast, the deal has been hailed as the UK’s largest sports media rights agreement.
Despite a modest 4% annual revenue growth from domestic rights, the deal establishes the Premier League as the world’s most successful domestic football competition.
It also doubles the value of the recent agreement announced by Serie A.
Amazon and DAZN axed
Despite the magnitude of the agreement, the absence of major technology companies such as Amazon and DAZN signals potential shifts in the landscape of broadcast rights.
Without a similar cut-price deal that allowed the company to broadcast games in 2019, Amazon lost its right to televise Premier League games in the recent auction.
DAZN also faced challenges in securing TV right deals, meaning both firms will be unable to broadcast games from the English top flight.
Traditional Saturday 3.00 pm blackout could be impacted
The expanded Premier League deal may also impact the traditional Saturday 3.00 pm blackout, put in place to maintain scarcity in a bid to ramp up demand for live games.
However, with a more than 25% increase in live games, the development coincides with the UK government’s support for proposals enabling the Women’s Super League to broadcast live matches during the same time slot.
