UK pay-TV giant Sky Sports has announced that its coverage of the 2025-26 English Premier League soccer campaign saw viewership swell 25% year-on-year as Arsenal finally secured its first title in over 20 years.
That the league was not decided until the penultimate gameweek meant that, unlike the 2024-25 campaign, which was wrapped up well in advance, viewership on the primary broadcaster, Sky Sports, remained high throughout the season.
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Indeed, on the final day of action, Sky broadcast all 10 games simultaneously, averaging 3 million in-home viewers (plus many more out of home).
This goes some way to ameliorating the viewership travails of the 2024-25 campaign, when Premier League coverage on Sky fell 10% when compared to the 2023-24 season.
Given that Sky and TNT will split live rights between them for the 2025-26 to 2028-29 cycle, the strong viewership uplift for an Arsenal revival, and crucially, the third different champion in as many years, will be positive for Sky’s plans to benefit from its marquee rights package.
Strong viewership translated across the Sky Sports rights ecosystem, with the top-tier English Women’s Super League enjoying a 16% year-on-year (YoY) viewership increase in what was the first of a new five-year deal.
Scotland’s top-flight Premiership also performed well, with a season of considerable intrigue and a final-day title decider contributing to viewership growth of 22% YoY.
Strong viewership seems to have been a theme across Europe, with Italy’s Serie A boasting a 13% YoY increase in viewership, with an average of 7.2 million viewers per broadcast weekend across primary rightsholders Sky Italia and DAZN.
Speaking on the figures, Serie A chief executive Luigi de Siervo stated: “This result is only partly linked to the teams or schedules, but also depends on the ability to plan and maximize the value of the product.” In this regard, he refers to the league’s efforts to better schedule marquee fixtures in order to attract the strongest viewership interest.
Michele Ciccarese, Serie A’s commercial and marketing director, added on what this means for sponsorship value: “It's an impressive figure, with a consistency that is repeated every week. For companies, it means having a stable and continuous territory in which to invest.
“The 13% increase in audience means 38 days of continuity for a brand. There is no other territory in Italy capable of offering a similar frequency."
Ciccarese also seemingly confirmed that Serie A commercial revenues from sponsorship had risen to €90 million ($104.7 million) this year, a marked increase from the near €25 million figure six years ago, which perhaps lends credence to his claim of the increasing value of Italian soccer inventory.
