Inside the Premier League’s £6.7bn TV deal – and what it really means
It excludes global players Amazon and Netflix – for now – and largely signals a desire to stick to the tried and tested in troubled economic times. But, as Rich Edwards reveals, the massive TV rights deal with Sky and TNT Sports, could signal a seismic change in how the game is watched in the future
It’s like getting your tea from Marks & Spencer – it’s a bit more upmarket than going to Aldi, but it’s not like going to The Ritz. It’s inoffensive and affordable. It’s mid-territory.”
That’s the summation of Professor Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Paris, when asked to describe the latest TV rights deal between the Premier League, Sky TV and TNT Sports – a deal worth £6.7bn over four seasons.
It’s a deal that doesn’t include the likes of Amazon or Netflix, and one that very much illustrates the desire of the world’s richest league to stick steadfastly to the tried and tested in troubled economic times.
So how will that approach go down with the foreign investors who have poured cash into the English top flight, not least the mega-bucks Americans who have seen US Sport become the playground of the world’s biggest streaming services back home. Not least Amazon, who paid $100m to exclusively screen the first-ever Black Friday NFL game last month.
In a week when the Premier League’s midweek games are being screened on Amazon Prime, the future of the relationship between the online marketplace and our national sport suddenly looks uncertain, with a four-year hiatus in streaming on this side of the Atlantic set to kick off at the start of the 2025/26 season.
So is this a pause or a full stop?
“I don’t think this contract is a deal breaker for these American owners – a lot of them are also trying to deal with the same turbulent environment as the Premier League,” says Chadwick. “It’s a bit like having David Seaman in goal; this deal is the equivalent of Safe Hands. That [broadcast] money is going nowhere and allows these clubs to go out and do wild and whacky things elsewhere. They can make big speculative bets with their other investments.
“Look at what Ryan Reynolds has done at Wrexham. He has cut his own deal with Disney+. Maybe where we’re heading is the safety net in the TV cash from Sky, and what we might see is these clubs cutting more entertainment and lifestyle-type contracts with the likes of Disney+, Amazon or Netflix, and having an All or Nothing type docuseries offering viewers a glimpse behind the curtain.
“At the moment, the global economic future is uncertain, and the issues facing the Premier League are the same as those that a lot of owners are trying to manage, too. Yes, this deal sounds big in monetary terms, but it’s not exciting. Maybe the club owners and also the Premier League realise the bigger money, and potentially more lucrative path, comes from the kinds of contracts we’ve seen with Wrexham.”
The Welsh club make an incongruous poster boy for the digital era, but the stats speak for themselves. Research by Saxo Bank suggested that the club will have made £321,000 per hour of content for the Disney+ series. The club’s TikTok following, meanwhile, has gone from zero to 1.5 million. It’s not hard to imagine those numbers being multiplied significantly, should the cameras be let loose on Merseyside or in north London.
The bitter chill of a December midweek Premier League programme, screened exclusively live on Amazon, is a world away from Kansas. Jordan Kobritz – professor and chair of the sport management department at SUNY Cortland – sees no sign that this streaming revolution, which is transforming the way US sport is consumed, will cool off any time soon.
And Kobritz thinks it’s probable that the likes of Amazon will launch another push into the English rights markets when the sums add up. “There’s only one sport in the US that really moves the needle, and that’s the NFL,” he says. “I think 81 of the top 100 viewing figures this year have been NFL games. Amazon wants access to that audience and the demographic.
“The Black Friday game was a perfect example of why they want to do that. There will be more and more streaming here, that’s the direction of travel. The NFL are even talking about putting the Super Bowl on a streaming platform. And maybe even moving the Super Bowl to somewhere outside the USA. There’s no hesitancy or reluctance to move the game from New York to London. In England, those interests might not be the same interests as we see in sports like the NFL here. The bottom line might not make it worth their while at the moment but that will change.
“The Premier League have done what’s best for them at the current time. And the fact that Netflix and Amazon were excluded only means they’re going to be more aggressive when it comes to winning the streaming rights in this country. These US owners [in the Premier League] are smart guys, they’re hedging their bets and they’re spreading their risk by investing in so many different sporting franchises.”
But while it’s full stream ahead for American sport, Rob Wilson, professor of applied sports finance at Sheffield Hallam University, is also confident that we haven’t seen the last of Amazon, Netflix or Disney when it comes to Premier League coverage.
“In four years’ time we’ll probably see the streaming services having another go at the market,” he says. “I think there is a real sense that the foreign owners are prepared to play the long game. The American investment is predicated on profit maximisation – they want a return, which is why private equity has got heavily involved as well. And while domestic deals have plateaued, there’s still growth in the international market, which is a little bit more flexible.”
In short, though, this is a deal that reflects the times that the Premier League is operating in.
“The Premier League has tried to hunker down for the next five to 10 years, because no one really knows what is around the corner – there’s just so much unpredictability,” says Chadwick.
For a league marketing itself as the most exciting in world football, it’s not an approach that screams progress. But it’s one that makes sense for all parties. For the time being at least.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments