Sky Sports and TNT Sports have split the latest round of Premier League TV rights between them, meaning an end, for now, to the streaming services breaking into the traditional broadcasters’ domination.
The companies have paid a record £6.7 billion between them for the latest rights deal, which runs for four years from the 2025-26 season, and is described as the “largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK”.
The much-discussed Saturday 3pm blackout remains in place, but Sky has won the rights to broadcast every Sunday 2pm game.
The current broadcast deal, which expires at the end of the 2024/5 season is worth £5 billion.
According to analyst Paolo Pesctaore, the competitive landscape of the new deal is significantly different, with viewers’ habits continuing to change and the macro-economic environment remaining challenging.
“We have turned a corner on bidding wars,” he tells TVBEurope. “BT has effectively changed the sports broadcasting market; having merged with Warner Bros Discovery with BT Sport rebranded as TNT Sport. Providers have now forged cross carriage content deals which sees most if not all cross-carriage content deals that see most, if not all, games available for viewing on major platforms.
“The Amazon experiment is no more and with no further new players entering the market, linear broadcasters prevail ushering in a new era,” he adds.
Pescatore describes the new deal as a good outcome for everybody, including the fans.
“The Premier League has generated more revenue, with the broadcasters showing more games and fewer subscriptions for the fans,” he explains. “All in all it provides greater longer-term certainty.”
But, for the streaming services, it’s likely to be seen as a missed opportunity. “The outcome underlines Amazon’s opportunistic approach to acquiring sports rights,” says Pescatore. “Also it puts doubts into DAZN’s longer-term ambitions to crack the UK market which is looking unlikely at this moment.
“All eyes now turn to subscription fees and whether we will see a price increase. This can be the drawback when the majority of rights are secured by one provider.”
