FA Hopes To Net £400m In TV Rights Auction - 14/01/2007

An auction for television rights to FA Cup and England home football internationals will kick off next month, amid expectations that the winning bid will easily exceed the existing £80m a year deal. It is hoped that competition among broadcasters and growing audiences will generate more than £400m in the four years after summer 2008. Commercial broadcasters, including ITV, NTL and Five are interested in the substantial, largely male audience that football delivers.

Since the existing deal was negotiated, the Premiership has re-auctioned its set of rights for 60 per cent more. This has boosted confidence at the FA which had to suffer a 28 per cent in the value of its broadcast rights at the last auction. FA cup matches have seen a growth in popularity under the current agreement. Last season, viewing figures for BBC games were up by 26 per cent. Third round audiences were up 3 per cent on a year ago with the Liverpool-Arsenal clash attracting 7.4 million viewers. Chris Hayward, head of broadcasting at Zenith Optimedia commented, 'Essentially, these are the only major set of sports rights that are coming to the market in 2007 and, combined with the England property, the FA cup games deliver audiences that even entertainment shows struggle to deliver on a consistent basis.'