English soccer’s Premier League will significantly increase the number of live matches in the UK in its next domestic media rights cycle, with 270 to be shown by broadcasters each year from the 2025-26 season.
The league yesterday (October 18) announced it had issued invitations to tender (ITT) for domestic rights for four seasons until 2028-29.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The English top-flight has launched two separate standalone tenders for its UK live and near-live rights and free-to-air (FTA) highlights rights. The four seasons on offer are up from the traditional three-year cycle.
The live rights consist of five live packages of between 42 and 65 matches per season and a total of 270. No single buyer will be allowed to acquire more than four of the five live packages being sold.
All matches in the five midweek rounds per season, and the final match round in each season (when all games are played simultaneously) will be broadcast live.
The current established kick-off slots of Saturday 12.30pm and 5.30pm, Sunday 2pm and 4.30pm as well as one of 8pm on a Monday (or Friday) are being maintained and will each be linked to one of the five live packages.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataFor the first time, all matches that are moved to 2pm on Sundays due to club participation in European competitions, will be broadcast live.
Recent reports suggested that the league will offer broadcasters four additional televised matches on Sunday, including a new 6.30pm kick-off slot. Matches would reportedly kick off on Sundays between midday and 6.30pm.
As expected, the Premier League’s domestic tender does not include any attempts to present a challenge to the blackout for 3pm fixtures on Saturdays despite widespread calls for this to be scrapped.
The league stated: “The increased number of matches creates a compelling offering for broadcasters and fans while allowing for the continued protection of the Saturday 3pm 'closed period', the purpose of which is to encourage attendance and participation at all levels of the sport at the traditional time at which English football takes place across the country.”
The Premier League is seeking an increase in its TV revenue by making the additional matches available to broadcasters, with the overall number of live packages reduced from seven to five to drive up the price of each individual package.
Within the same ITT for live audiovisual rights, the Premier League is also offering a single near-live package encompassing near-live long-form rights to 110 non-live matches per season, for linear and on-demand viewing, and short-form clips rights to all 380 matches per season.
The league is also offering its FTA highlights package via a separate ITT. The highlights package includes the right to present an FTA highlights program including coverage of all 380 matches per season and includes catch-up rights as well as certain digital rights.
The league has gone to market with a domestic tender process for the first time since 2018 after rolling over its existing agreements with Sky and TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) and retail giant Amazon during the pandemic.
Their present three-year deals for the Premier League run until the end of the 2024-25 season. The contracts are valued at a combined £4.8 billion ($6 billion).
The trio have held rights together since the 2019-20 season after Amazon broke the Sky-BT monopoly, marking the league’s first domestic deal with a streaming service.
Highlights are shown domestically by public service broadcaster the BBC.
At present, the 200 available games are split into seven packages shared between Sky, TNT Sports, and Amazon. Sky is the dominant domestic rightsholder, with four sets of rights, equating to 128 matches per season.
TNT Sports owns two packages – one for the Saturday 12.30pm kick-off and the other for two midweek rounds. Amazon bought one package, which allows its Prime Video service to broadcast Boxing Day fixtures and a set of midweek games.
Sky and TNT Sports – which was rebranded in July as part of a joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery – are expected to be major bidders once again, while Amazon and global streaming service DAZN could be in the mix.
However, the reduction in packages could make it harder for Amazon to retain its rights unless it acquires a bigger slice of games.
The league has followed Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1 in increasing the contract length on offer with broadcasters now allowed to bid for four-year contracts instead of the three-year deals traditionally presented for each broadcasting rights cycle.
Serie A and Ligue 1 recently increased the contract lengths in their respective domestic tenders which are currently on the market.
