Premier League expects sizeable increase on TV deals

The Premier League was launched in 1992

The Premier League expects to secure a significant increase on its £5bn domestic TV rights deals when it launches its new tender later in 2023.

However, it has already been agreed as many as 50 more games may be offered, with deals potentially spread over four years rather than the current three with Sky, TNT and Amazon Prime.

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This will be the first time the Premier League has put its UK rights up for sale in six years.

The current deal was allowed to be extended on the same terms as the previous one by competition authorities in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Additional games will evidently mean more matches being moved away from the Saturday 15:00 slot.

However, it is thought the plan would be to the current alternative slots, particularly on Friday, Saturday and Monday nights, more often rather than regularly screen matches on a Sunday evening as had been feared.

Italy's Serie A routinely schedules two matches on Friday and Monday evenings, the first of which has a 17:30 kick-off.

The league has already negotiated some six-year overseas TV deals, including with key US broadcaster NBC, who are paying around £2bn to screen matches until 2028.

Domestic deals with Sky Sports, TNT and Amazon Prime run out in 2025.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has already said there are no plans to show matches at 3pm on a Saturday, the timeslot currently subject to a TV blackout in the UK.

English Football League clubs also met on Thursday where "a comprehensive update was provided on the status of ongoing discussions" with the Premier League a potential future financial arrangement with English football's top-flight.

It is thought that by the EFL Board meeting on 12 October there will be an outline agreement to talk to the Premier League over the money to be filtered down.

This is likely to mean an additional sum of around £130m will be paid to EFL clubs, although the precise figure will fluctuate as it will be linked to the combined TV deals of the two organisations.

The EFL has already agreed a five-year deal with Sky.

Moving forward, the two bodies intend to enter into joint negotiations over TV contracts. However, this will be for the period from 2029 onwards.

The Premier League and EFL recognise that the media landscape in terms of streaming will look very different by then, so details have yet to be agreed.

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