Premier League set for £3bn windfall from global TV rights

 

• The Premier League is on course to sell overseas television rights for 2016 to 2019 for more than £3bn
• League earns more on foreign rights alone than ALL TV rights from Spain, Italy, Germany and France combined
• Overseas deals in addition to £5.1bn paid by Sky Sports and BT Sport for UK broadcasting rights
• Many countries have seen at least a 100 per cent rise on existing Premier League rights in latest negotiations
• England's top flight benefiting as pay-per-view channels in countries like Hong Kong make higher and higher bids  

The Premier League is on course to sell overseas TV rights for 2016 to 2019 for more than £3billion, or more than £1billion a year, Sportsmail can reveal.

England's top division is the most popular sports league in the world in terms of territories covered and income gained from foreign sales.

Under the current three-year deals, for 2013-16, the League makes £2.23bn from overseas rights, or £743m a year.

A map of Europe showing the cost per season for Premier League TV rights in each country, including new deals for 2016-19

A map of the world showing selected Premier League television rights deals, including some of the new deals agreed for 2016-2019 

This eye-watering sum means the Premier League earns more from foreign rights alone each year than any major European rival - Spain's La Liga, Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A or France's Ligue 1 - make from ALL their TV rights - annual, domestic and foreign combined.

On top of the £743m a year now, the Premier League makes more than £1bn a year from live domestic rights from Sky and BT Sport.

Sky Sports paid the bulk of the £5.1bn cost for domestic Premier League rights between 2016 and 2019 

Sky share their domestic coverage with BT Sport, who themselves paid £960m to screen England's top flight until 2019

That £1bn figure will jump to £1.7bn a year in the 2016-19 period from domestic rights, thanks to the next £5.1bn Sky and BT deal announced in February.

And the early signs are the £743m-a-year from foreign rights will almost certainly soar above £1bn a year from 2016, with some key markets doubling in value so far.

In the USA, broadcasting giants NBC paid $250m for three years for 2013-16, which was £165m at the time, or £55m a year. For the six-year period 2016-22 sources say they will pay close to $1bn, or £110m per year. 

Astonishingly, that 100 per cent growth rate has been outstripped in Scandinavia, where it was announced last week that new deals for 2016-19 have been concluded in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Last time the Nordic region earned the Premier League £52.8m combined, but in 2016-19 that will jump closer to £110m a year, or a rise of 108 per cent.

Another staggering rise in value has also been sealed in Hong Kong, where a three-year deal last time for $200m (£128m at the time, or £42.67m a year) has surged to around $420m for 2016-19, or £92m a year. That is a leap of 116 per cent.

Hong Kong is a prime example of a Premier League marketeer's dream, a football fanatical territory where rival pay-TV operators are desperate to get their hands on what is perceived to be THE premium live sports content in the world: Premier League games.

In previous rights periods in Hong Kong, rivals NowTV and i-Cable spent years in battle, the rights switching between them as the price soared. 

NBC, whose American coverage is fronted by Rebecca Lowe, are expected to pay close to $1bn for the rights between 2016 and 2022

Arsenal fans in a Washington DC bar celebrate as their team scores in a Premier League match against Crystal Palace 

The rationale for the TV firms is they can charge customers a lot of money for a subscription including Premier League games, and customers have shown they are likely to switch providers to watch.

This time, for 2016-19, a new operator has entered the fray in Hong Kong, a Chinese mainland entertainment giant called LeTV - full name Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp.

When LeTV called a press conference last month to announce they had won the Premier League rights, there were more than 450 accredited journalists at the launch, just to hear about the rights deal. There have been World Cup finals games and editions of El Clasico in Spain covered by fewer reporters.

It is anticipated that LeTV will use their ownership of the Premier League rights in Hong Kong to market a number of their consumer products on which games can be watched, whether that's smartphones, tablets, other mobile devices or even LeTV's 'smart bike', a next generation bicycle that comes with a four-inch screen and a set of speakers for in-ride viewing.

If that sounds utterly outlandish then it's nothing more than one indication of where TV viewing is increasingly heading: to mobile platforms. And Premier League matches are seen as prime content to drive new viewing habits.

Rights growth can be expected to continue in any territories where there are pay-TV rivals who want to increase their market share, especially at a time when those rivals are using 'must have' content to promote and increase viewing across platforms, especially mobile devices.

Back on more familiar territory, the 2016-19 TV rights for Brazil have taken a massive hike in value, rising from almost to £10m a year now to more than £30m from next season, with ESPN bagging them in that country. And further growth, albeit more modest, has been clocked in sub-Saharan Africa, where SuperSport will pay almost £100m a year from 2016, up from £68.3m now, a jump of 44 per cent.

Members of Manchester United's fan club in Shanghai watch their team take on Fulham in a bar in their home city

United enjoy an enormous and fanatical support around the world, with fan clubs in most countries meeting regularly to watch their games

The tables accompanying this article show how overseas rights values have grown from being worth a total of £7.6m a year in the first five years of the Premier League (1992 to 1997) to a forecast of more than £1bn a year from next season. They also show how Asia has driven the recent boom, accounting for almost £1bn of the £2.23bn in the 2013-16 rights cycle.

While some key markets have doubled in value from last time, it would be wrong to assume the same will happen everywhere. Across much of Europe outside the UK and Scandinavia, rights values are expected to be steady or grow by small margins. The same is true in the Middle East and north Africa (MENA) region.

Liverpool supporters in Malaysia make their favourite team feel welcome during a summer tour. Many English clubs tap into these markets

Arguably most intriguing is what will happen in some of the Premier League's most pivotal Asian markets, notably Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.

Thailand was the biggest single market in terms of income in 2013-16, worth £204.8m over three years, or £68.3m a year. Thailand has phenomenally large audiences for Premier League games, relatively speaking, with millions tuning into live games even very late at night.

Malaysia is close to being as fanatical and an increase on the £42.7m per year from 2013-16 is expected. In India, a hike in the £30.9m a year from last time is also expected, although it remains to be seen whether it will soar or merely climb.

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