Next Tuesday the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will rule on whether the Premier League can continue to give its broadcasters domestic exclusivity or whether consumers should be free to cherry pick subscriptions from across Europe.
Next Tuesday the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will rule on whether the Premier League can continue to give its broadcasters domestic exclusivity or whether consumers should be free to cherry pick subscriptions from across Europe.
The case has its origins in a £8,000 fine imposed on Karen Murphy, a Portsmouth publican, after she had screened 3 pm live matches through a Greek pay-tv service. Sky and ESPN show fewer than half the games and are not allowed to screen matches played on Saturday afternoon. This television exclusion window is considered sacrosant by the Premier League.
If the Premiership loses the case it may have to replace its territory-by-territory licensing system after the 2012-13 season with a pan-european model. This could mean that it would opt not to sell all its 380 matches as it does at present and scale back the pan-European offering to the 138 games available in the UK. This would effectively extend the Saturday afternoon blackout to the rest of Europe. There would be some loss of revenue, but the Asian market would not be affected.
It is not clear which way the ruling will go, although a preliminary opinion earlier in the year by an advocate-general favoured Karen Murphy and the ECJ endorses such opinons in three-quarters of all cases. However, this does not mean that the Premiership bubble would have burst, simply that some restructuring of the television offer will be required.