Deloitte comments on Premier League rights auction

Austin Houlihan, Senior Manager in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said:

“The current cycle of Premier League broadcast deals generates over £5.5 billion in domestic and overseas rights fees, delivering a key competitive advantage for the English top-flight compared to other European leagues. This is strengthened hugely by the new live rights deals, which deliver a 70% boost compared to current deals. This is similar to the uplift achieved the last time the Premier League went to market, with live rights fees almost tripling in value compared to the two cycles previously. The domestic rights fee per live game has now reached £10.2m, compared to £6.5m per game in the current cycle.

“With increases already achieved from domestic live and highlights rights deals and anticipated strong growth in overseas deals, the benefits of the new deals for Premier League clubs will be substantial.

“In 1991/92, the season before the inception of the Premier League, top-flight clubs generated less than £15m in broadcast revenue. In 2013/14, the first season of the current three year cycle, the 20 top-flight clubs shared broadcast distributions totalling £1.5 billion. The new round of deals from 2016/17, will deliver record amounts to clubs.

“With this latest round of Premier League deals we see no signs that the ‘media rights bubble’ is going to burst any time soon, as some have predicted regularly over the last 20 years. Top-tier domestic league football continues to be highly attractive to Pay-TV, delivering subscription-driving content through ten months of the year.”

End

Notes to editors

About the Sports Business Group at Deloitte
Over the last 20 years Deloitte has developed a unique focus on the business of sport. Our specialist Sports Business Group offers a multi-disciplined expert service with dedicated people and skills capable of adding significant value to the business of sport. Whether it is benchmarking or strategic business reviews, operational turnarounds, revenue enhancement strategies or stadium/venue development plans, business planning, market and demand analysis, acquisitions, due diligence, expert witness, audits or tax planning; we have worked with more clubs, leagues, governing bodies, stadia developers, event organisers, commercial partners, financiers and investors than any other adviser.
 
For further information on our services you can access our website at www.deloitte.co.uk/sportsbusinessgroup

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

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