The sports broadcasting industry has become a pivotal part of football today.
For audiences, the broadcast is the mode that allows the fans to follow the game without hurdles, while for football clubs it has become a vital revenue source in their operations.
The revenue generated by the clubs from revenue varies tremendously from League to League. EPL enjoys the heftiest TV rights deals, its clubs can also register higher revenues compared to other league clubs. For instance, West Brom, who finished last in the 2017-18 season, saw broadcasting revenue that would have made them the 5th top broadcasting earner in La Liga in that season, meaning that in Spain only Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and Sevilla were able to collect more from broadcasting.
The differences are also stark between Big and smaller clubs in the same football league. That difference is smaller in England, due to a more equitable distribution system. In the 2017-18 football, season top broadcasting earners Liverpool garnered a revenue that was almost twice that of Stokes Football Club.
Broadcasting revenues were the catalyst behind the formation of the Premier League itself in the early 1990s. Earlier, TV rights income was distributed across the domestic leagues, whereas top clubs wanted to form an elite league, which could sell its own rights and share income only among member clubs. Korean soccer broadcast 축구중계방송
When the breakaway Premier League’s inaugural season started, EPL’s TV rights’ revenues progressed at a very unusual place. The total income from domestic and international TV rights for the first cycle (GBP 254 million in 1992-1997) had grown 10 times by the 5th cycle (GBP 2.4 billion in 2007-2010). The latest (2016-2019) period ended with a total income of GBP 8.5 billion, and the league will cash in GBP 9.2 billion
in the new 3-year cycle (2019-2022).
In the new 3-year domestic TV deal Sky Sports will broadcast 128 live
matches and BT Sport will broadcast the remaining 52 matches. Also, this will be the maiden instance in England, when an entire round of matches will be shown live and exclusive domestically. This is considered a major step in transforming the broadcasting landscape as it has broken the monopoly of Sky and BT on EPL rights.
Distributions of international TV rights have also changed. The English Premier League is the most followed sports league in the world, followed in 188 countries by TV audiences of 3.2 billion people. To serve them, the Premier League runs a dedicated production arm, operated by IMG Productions, producing all content for its international television partners.
Overseas revenues had been shared equally among the EPL clubs since 1992 when that income was negligible. However, as football has become a global entertainment product, the significance of international TV rights has become evident.
As a consequence, the “big six” clubs have recently been demanding a greater share of the income, claiming that they are the drawing card for global audiences. According to a compromise among the 20 EPL clubs a year ago, from 2019-20, the current level of revenue from overseas TV rights sales (GBP 3.3 Billion) will still be shared equally, while any increase on top of that will be distributed according to their league position in the given season.
The Premier League is by far the most successful football league in selling
domestic TV rights. The income they can realize from broadcasting a single match is almost triple what the major leagues can achieve.
The Spanish La Liga is also entering into a new 3-year broadcasting cycle in 2019-20, with Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica outbidding its main rival Mediapro for the majority of broadcast rights. The deal is expected to raise EUR 3.4 billion in revenues, an almost 30 % rise, compared to the previous TV rights cycle.
League president Javier Tebas expressed his intention to shrink the financial gap between LaLiga and England’s Premier League: he expects the two leagues to be practically equal within 10 years. At the same time, La Liga begins a new 5-year deal with Mediapro on its international rights. The deal extension will bring LaLiga an additional EUR 4.485 billion in revenue, also marking a 30 % increase on the previous 3-season cycle.
The German Bundesliga’s current 4-year broadcast rights deals, which
started in the 2017-18 season, are to secure revenues of EUR 4.6 billion, a growth of 85 % compared to the previous cycle. Matches are broadcast live on Sky Germany (263 matches), Euro sport (40), and ZDF (3), while streaming platform DAZN holds highlight rights. Although a new cycle is still two seasons away, Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert questioned the “no-single buyer” rule, as he believes the possibility of a monopoly on football fixtures could better help to increase revenues. In the meantime, DAZN depicted its interest in adding live games to its current portfolio in the next cycle.
While Bundesliga’s domestic TV rights revenues grow spectacularly, current international deals bring in only EUR 720 million (240 million per season), the second-lowest amount per season after the French Ligue 1.
Italy’s Serie A is starting the second year of its current (2018-2021) cycle. Satellite broadcaster Sky Italia is showing 266 live matches and streaming platform DAZN broadcasts 114 games, while national TV channel RAI is televising only highlights.
Sky and DAZN (owned by UK-based Perform Group) outbid Italy’s biggest commercial broadcaster Mediaset. The value of domestic rights decreased in the current cycle by 9% compared to the previous one, from EUR 3.2 to 2.92 billion – a painful turn, especially as Italian clubs are traditionally heavily dependent on broadcasting revenues.
In the meantime, revenues from international rights more than doubled in the current season.
France’s Ligue 1 is entering the last season of its current 4-year (2016-20) domestic cycle, while most deals for the next 4-year period (2020-24) have already been settled. Spanish group Mediapro won the main “lots” auctioned, with BeIN Sports securing the remaining packages. In contrast, Canal +, which had traditionally been the broadcaster of the French championship since 1984, has not been awarded any lot.
Contracts for the upcoming four seasons guarantee a massive, 59 % growth in revenues (from EUR 2.9 billion to 4.6 billion). However, Ligue 1 remains the least attractive among the “big five” leagues overseas, as the international TV rights revenues are almost 20 times smaller than those of the Premier League.