Premier League TV rights deal with BSkyB has consequences

Football News 24/7

BSkyB paid £2.3 billion to keep its grip on the flagship the English Premier League football after Al Jazeera entered the bidding forcing a belt tightening in ‘other areas’ BSkyB MD Barney Francis has conceded at the Leaders in Football Conference at Chelsea.

In June 2012, the Premier League sold the rights for seven TV packages for the 2013/14 to 2015/16 football seasons for an overall value of £3.018 billion.

The seven rights packages—comprising five of 26 matches and two of 12 matches—with BSkyB securing packages B, C, D, E and F totalling 116 matches and BT Vision grabbing packages A and G with 38 matches. The deal represents an incredible increase of £1.25 billion on the current broadcast settlement, which shares rights between BSkyB and ESPN.

Francis conceded that accommodating such a huge payments meant making strategic priorities and to trim costs in other parts of the business to preserve the football coverage.

PR