Sky & Bt Secure £4.46bn Premier League Rights

14 Feb 2018 | tshego

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Sky and BT have finalised deals worth £4.464bn for five of the seven available broadcast packages for Premier League football.

The new agreements cover three seasons starting from 2019/20.

Sky have paid £3.6bn to acquire four packs of rights totalling 128 games a season – up from 126 matches in the last deal – with BT adding the additional package.

The destination of the two final live packages are still yet to be confirmed, with speculation continuing that the likes of Amazon, Netflix and Facebook could be involved for the first time.

BT will reportedly continue to engage with the Premier League over the final two packages of midweek and bank holiday matches, but there is no indication about Sky’s interest.

The new deal for Sky, which is a 16% cost reduction per game versus the current agreement, will offer Sky Sports viewers every first-pick weekend match, plus Saturday evening fixtures for the first time, all screened on Sky’s Premier League channel.

BT Sport will continue to show games at 5.30pm on Saturdays next season and then move to Saturday lunchtime fixtures from August 2019 at a cost of £295m per season – £9.22m per match, up from £7.6m – across the three years.

Sky’s new deal works out at £9.3m per game, down from £10.8m in the current deal.

Stephen van Rooyen, Sky’s UK chief executive, said: “We continue to invest in content that our customers value and which complements our strategy to broaden our offer. Not only do we remain the home of Premier League football but also the home of top quality drama, entertainment, comedy and other sports.

“Our disciplined approach means we continue to have the flexibility to invest in each of these areas as we choose, underlining our position as Europe’s largest investor in content.”

Marc Allera, chief executive of BT’s Consumer division, commented: “The Premier League is undoubtedly the most competitive and exciting domestic league in the world, so we’re delighted that our customers will be able to continue enjoying Saturday games on BT Sport.

“The Premier League is a big part of our live sport line-up, which includes the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, the Emirates FA Cup, MotoGP, boxing, Aviva Premiership rugby and European Rugby Champions Cup.

“BT Sport is enjoyed by over five million households and pubs and clubs across the UK. We are excited about the opportunity to bring this great content to even more TV and mobile customers as we pursue our strategy of being the best provider of converged network services in the UK.”