euro news_news 26/02/2015 10:21 Page 1
Premier League rights reach £5.136bn
xisting rights-holders
Sky and BT emerged
successful from the
auction process for live UK
broadcasting rights to the
English Premier League for
the three seasons 2016 to
2019, but had to bid record
sums to secure their
packages. Discovery
Communications and Qatariowned beIN Sports had been
rumoured to be among the
bidders, but failed to win any
packages.
The seven packages – five of
28 matches and two of 14
matches – totalling 168 matches,
saw Sky secure packages A, C, D,
E, and G totalling 126 matches, an
increase of 10 over its existing
allocation, paying £4.176 billion,
with BT securing packages B and
F, totalling 42 matches, four more
than at present and paying £960
million, representing a 70%
increase over the current deal at a
total of £5.136 billion (€6.4bn).
Premier League chief
executive, Richard Scudamore,
said it was an endorsement of
what the Barclays Premier League
delivered that these broadcast
partnerships had been extended
and enhanced. “We are grateful
for the continued belief that Sky
Sports and BT Sport have in the
Premier League and our clubs,
both as a sporting competition
and organisations to work with.
We are also grateful to the
significant interest and
participation in the process from
other highly credible parties.”
Scudamore noted that there
was an ongoing Ofcom
investigation into the way the
rights are sold, but remained
confident that the process was
compatible with both UK and EU
competition law as well as being
of great benefit to the whole of
English football.
Sky's £1.392 billion per annum
for each of the three years of the
new agreement, represents an
83% per cent increase over the
E
6 EUROMEDIA
cost of the existing contract, with
the broadcaster claiming it has a
clear set of plans in place to fund
the bid and deliver its financial
plans in line with expectations.
The company said it will work
hard to minimise the impact of
higher rights costs on customers,
with the majority of the funding
coming through substantial
additional savings to be delivered
by efficiency plans.
BT's rights will cost £320m
per season compared with £246m
per season at present. On a per
game basis, this equates to £7.6m
per game, an increase of 18% on
the £6.5m per game currently.
According to Paolo Pescatore,
director of multiplay and media at
CCS Insight, there is only one real
winner from the rights auction,
and that is the Premier League.
“For a similar rights portfolio as
before, but with a phenomenal
increase in spend, these huge
sums clearly show the importance
of this rights auction to BT and
Sky as part of their own
aspirations in multiplay,” he
advised, suggesting that it made
sense for BT Sport and Sky to
Virgin Media in €4bn broadband boost
UK broadband cable MSO
Virgin Media is embarking
on 'Project Lightning',
which it describes as the
single largest investment
in broadband digital
infrastructure in the
country for more than a
decade.
With the support of
parent company Liberty
Global, Virgin Media will
extend its fibre-rich network
beyond its franchised areas
to approximately four million
additional premises over the
next five years. This will
increase the number of
homes and businesses to
which Virgin Media can offer
services by almost a third;
from around half of the
country now to nearly 17m
premises by 2020.
Ofcom figures suggest
the UK is the world’s most
Internet-based major
economy. Broadband
infrastructure, and the
services offered over it, will
be increasingly central to the
country’s growth over the
coming decades.
Mike Fries, Liberty Global
chief executive officer, said
the operator's nextgeneration fibre-rich
networks reached 50m
households across Europe,
enabling its customers to
discover and experience the
endless possibilities of the
digital world. “After a record
operating performance,
Project Lightning is a
significant investment that
demonstrates the confidence
we have in Virgin Media and
the UK as a place to do
business,” he declared.
come out on top.
“Any new entrant would have
disrupted the market and meant
that users would have to take out
three separate subscriptions while
also being a severe dent to BT’s
own aspirations in this area.
Though BT has secured a broad
portfolio of rights focussed on
European sports, this is a dent to
its own aspirations to attract Sky
households; who clearly have a
strong appetite to watch Premier
League football.”
“Sky has shown that people
are willing to pay for live sport
and it will continue to be a battle
ground for multiplay providers in
the year to come. Given the ever
escalating cost of content rights,
we would expect consumers to
pay more to watch football on the
big screen,” he suggested.
According to TV analyst Tim
Westcott of IHS Technology, the
“massive” increase in Sky’s
investment in Premier League
football rights indicates its
determination to retain
leadership of the premium
sports space in the UK, but he
questions where it will raise the
additional money it will need to
fund the contract.
“An IPO for Sky Europe
would be one way of raising
cash. Sky will almost certainly
have to raise