Sky Sports and BT secure Premier League TV rights in record £5.13bn deal
Sky Sports and BT Sport have landed the TV rights to the Premier League for the next three years in a landmark £5.13bn deal
The deal is the largest ever secured for the league, marking a steep rise from the previous £3bn agreement which expired this season.
BT has acquired the rights to 42 Premier League matches over the next three years, an increase of four matches a season, costing £320m annually. Sky on the other hand forked out £1.39bn per annum for the rights to 126 Premier League matches in the same period.
John Petter, BT consumer chief executive said: “I am pleased we will be showing Premier League football for a further three years and that we have secured the prime Saturday evening slot.”
Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s group chief executive, said: “This is a good result and confirms that Sky is the unrivalled choice for sports fans. We went into the Premier League auction with a clear objective and are pleased to have secured the rights that we wanted.”
Bob Wootton, director of media and advertising at the ISBA, the UK advertiser trade body, said: “It was and is crucial for Sky and BT to secure Premier League rights as it’s a huge attraction to its subscribers. Advertisers will always invest in broadcasters that can deliver relevant audiences - there is little loyalty here.”
Wootton concluded: “With the potential increase in competition, it clearly wasn’t easy for Sky and BT to retain the rights but they almost had no choice as this is too big a draw for football fans and the broadcasters can’t afford to lose that audience and subsequently a large chunk of advertising revenue.”
The bids were finalised despite Virgin Media last September appealing to Ofcom to investigate the Barclay’s Premier League bidding process.