Yahoo Finance Premier League agrees three-year renewal of TV broadcasting deal with Amazon, BBC, BT and Sky
The Premier League has announced a rollover of its existing £4.7billion broadcast deal for the next three years and pledged an extra £100million in support for the football pyramid.
The new deal with Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video and the BBC will run from 2022 to 2025 on the same terms as the existing arrangement, agreed in 2018.
The Government approved the deal “in principle” with an “exclusion order” under the competition act, which allowed the League to renew without its normal tender process.
The value of the League’s deal dropped by 10 percent three years ago and there was concern among clubs that there could be another fall if the usual open market auction went ahead, amid fears that the value of domestic leagues in Europe has reached a peak.
In return for the Government’s co-operation, the League has pledged an extra £100m to the football pyramid over the next four years – on top of its existing commitment to spend £1.5bn on the wider game over the three-year period of the new deal.
“The additional funding will be available to more than 1,000 clubs in the National League system, women’s and girls’ football, EFL League One and League Two clubs and the Football Foundation,” the League said in a statement.
“It will also support a number of football-wide projects, which will include the Premier League’s work looking at head injuries in football, anti-discrimination and fan groups who receive funding from the Premier League.”
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters claimed the deal would ensure the wider game could make a strong recovery from the pandemic.
“We know that, once concluded, this will have a positive impact on the wider industry, jobs and tax revenues and will enable us to maintain and increase our existing solidarity and community financial commitments to the football pyramid for the next four years, even though we are yet to understand the full impact of the pandemic,” Masters said.
“It comes at an important time and will enable us to plan ahead with increased certainty against a more stable economic backdrop.”
The deal consists of 200 live matches, with Sky showing 128, BT 52 and Amazon 20. The BBC would retain the non-live rights to Match of the Day and its spin-off shows.
Meanwhile, BT Sport have confirmed that they will not ask Champions League teams who feature on Wednesday night to play at 12.30pm on Saturdays, which the slot to be pushed back to 7.45pm during the new cycle.
Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp is among the managers to have criticised the existing arrangement but the new slot is unlikely to please supporter-groups, with away fans now potentially facing overnight stays or difficult journeys home in the evening.
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