Out of competition – English Premier League
The American MLS, under a new contract with Apple for the television rights sold to the tech giant, will receive $250 million per season – the entire 10-year deal is valued at $2.5 billion. This contract makes the League one of the leading in the world: in terms of the cost of TV rights, it is firmly in the top 10, second only to the big five championships, Brazil and the still Turkish Super League.
The Sport Arena evaluated the television revenues of the leading leagues in Europe and the world, one of the most dynamically developing markets, as well as the championships of our neighbors and partners. Of course, the cost of television rights depends not only on the strength and attractiveness of the championship, but also on the standard of living in each particular country and, to be honest, upbringing and culture of sickness. But the numbers are telling in many ways.
Top 5: the Premier League will not catch up
England. Not so long ago, the English Premier League renewed the contract with broadcasters. The deal will bring the league $6.2 billion. On average, more than billions of dollars per season. The Premier League’s main broadcasters will be Sky Sports, BT, Amazon and the BBC. The agreement is valid until 2025. And that’s just in England. The sale of TV rights abroad will bring about the same amount to the League. As a result, during the season, the Premier League receives about $ 4 billion from the sale of television rights.
Spain. Last December, La Liga signed a five-year deal with broadcasters DAZN and Movistar. The total amount of the deal was $5.2 billion. The contract with TV channels was signed for five years. On average, La Liga clubs will receive more than a billion dollars per season.
Italy. Screening rights for Serie A matches from the 2021/22 DAZN season. Under the terms of the agreement, DAZN has exclusive rights to broadcast seven matches in each round. The deal with the streaming service is just over $882 million per season. The League receives about 150 million more from other broadcasters. In total, Serie A, on average, receives more than a billion euros for the sale of TV rights per season.
Germany. From the 2021/2022 season there is a new TV contract in the Bundesliga. Under the terms of the deal, the League receives an average of $1.15 billion per season, for a total deal value of $4.62 billion. The key partners of the league were the Sky TV company and the DAZN platform.
France. Ligue 1 has not been without controversy. A few seasons ago, European TV giant Mediapro ousted Canal+ with a $913 million bid for French domestic title rights. In August 2020, Mediapro made its first payment and then stopped fulfilling its obligations. The league went to court, which took its side and even imposed a $110 million fine.
And after the contract with the elite French division, Canal + returned to itself. True, under conditions that are much worse for Ligue 1 – in the 2021/22 season, the contract value was about $ 630 million. The broadcaster promises to improve conditions from the 2023/2024 season, when Ligue 1 will be reduced from 20 to 18 teams.
Turkey. The Turkish Super League had an incredible $500 million a year television contract from the 2016/2017 season until the end of the current one. At the same time, half of the money came to the league in dollars, half in Turkish lira. True, during the coronavirus season, payments were reduced to 340 million, and in the last they amounted to 410 million. So far, there is no information about the extension of the agreement. And honestly, it is doubtful that someone will pay that kind of money.
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Belgium. Starting in 2020, the country’s 24-member association of professional clubs has a five-year contract for the sale of collective television rights with ELEVEN SPORTS. According to this agreement, the company received exclusive rights to broadcast football matches of divisions 1A (Jupiler League) and 1B (Proximus League), Women’s Super League (Super Women’s League), as well as matches of the Belgian Cup (Crocky Cup) and the Super Cup of the country. The cost of this contract was $110 million for each season. This is $21 million more than under the previous agreement.
Netherlands. The official broadcaster of Eridivizia is FOX. The cost of the agreement is $94 million per season. At the same time, the amount of the club’s payments depends on its place in the ranking for the last 10 seasons, which is updated according to the results of each championship that ended in this segment.
How are the neighbors doing: we need to catch up with Romania
Poland. Currently, the Ekstraklasa championship in Poland is broadcast by Canal + and Telewizja Polska. Last season, the League received $52 million from broadcasters, and this season it’s $54 million. The total cost of the four-year agreement is about $220 million. A tender for the sale of rights for the next four years should be announced soon.
According to media reports, the same Canal + and Nordic Entertainment Group are participating in the struggle for the main package. The League estimates that the total cost of a new four-year deal will be at least $270 million, averaging about $67 million per season.
Romania. From the 2019/2020 season, the Romanian Liga 1 has signed a new five-year contract with a total value of around $150 million. On average, the League receives about $30 million per season.
Overseas: US can bypass Brazil
As noted, the 10-year deal with Apple will bring MLS 2.5 billion over 10 years. That being said, Apple is not expected to be the exclusive broadcaster of the MLS, which is in talks with a number of other potential TV partners.
In the meantime, in terms of the cost of TV rights overseas, MLS is second only to the Brazilian championship. But – a little, and, quite likely, after the signing of additional agreements, will get ahead of him. In the meantime, we simply state: in February 2020, Serie A and the television giant Globo signed a new agreement until 2024. Under its terms, the broadcaster pays 240 million euros ($253 million) annually to clubs in the elite division.
What do we have?
Russia’s full-scale military invasion has derailed not only every sporting and football tournament in Ukraine, but perhaps the most disruptive bidding in Premier League history. Recall that by the end of February, the UPL had to determine the broadcasters of the matches of the championship of Ukraine, having received a single marketing pool and rights.
Several buyers were ready to apply for the tender, and according to Tribuna, the League offered three main packages. The first is all 236 matches of the season plus 4 play-offs. It also includes exclusive highlights. The terms of use stipulate the display of matches live, there is a choice to broadcast for free, paid or on the OTT platform. The minimum cost of the package is $12 million. The other two – with all the home matches of Dynamo or Shakhtar, plus 3 meetings of each UPL round and 2 play-offs. The minimum cost of a package with matches of the giants was 7 million dollars. In other words, if all three packages were sold at the advertised value, the League would have received $26 million for the season.
This, of course, is not God knows what kind of money, but much more than the UPL received from the previous contract with Football TV channels – 16.5 million euros over three seasons. On the other hand, do not forget that at that time 12 clubs “started” the first year of the contract, and the country was just beginning to recover from the war provoked by Russia and its first invasion of the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
What will happen to the broadcasts of the current season is still unknown.
Source: Sportarena
I am Sandra Jackson, a journalist and content creator with extensive experience in the news industry. I have been working in the news media for over five years. During this time, I have worked as an author and editor at various outlets producing high-quality content that attracts readers from different demographics.
