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Articles concerning television and broadcasting issues in football.
An obscure and complex row between newspapers and football’s governing bodies has already hit Football League coverage and threatens to disrupt the start of the Premiership season. Newspaper coverage at the start of the football season last weekend was disrupted as journalists found themselves barred from football grounds. A number of national newspapers retaliated by scrapping their match reports or omitted sponors’ names.
The Premier League will earn £1.4 billion over a three-year period to 2103 for its overseas broadcasting rights. But it sees great potential for expanding this stream of income, much more so than in the domestic market.
Overseas television revenues are becoming an increasingly important part of overall Premier League revenues. A big share of these revenues comes from Asia which also has the greatest growth potential, not least in China. One reason for the popularity of the Premier League there is that in most East Asian countries gambling is very popular. Premier League matches are seen as reliable events not susceptible to fixing.
The so-called ‘pubcasting’ cases refer to pub landlords showing live football matches by subscribing to services from outside the UK rather than obtaining a license from Sky. They were discussed by Daniel Geey, a solicitor from Field Fisher Waterhouse at last week’s Sport and the European Union conference.
In Spain football teams negotiate individually with broadcasters for the right to show matches. If that was the case in England, Manchester United and Chelsea could strike their own deals and smaller top flight clubs would lose out.
Last week in Spain the satellite broadcaster Digital Plus concluded a series of football rights deals. Digital Plus is part owned by Telecinco (T5) which is the leading television group in Spain and is controlled by Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset.
There has been criticism of the cost of seats for the Champions League final, but for Uefa it is at the centre of its financial viability. Last season it generated 73 per cent of its income, €1.1 billion in total.
A decade or so ago there was a talk of a televised breakaway league of top clubs, but the Champions League provides a means of keeping them happy. €746.4m was distributed among the 32 teams in the last competition. Last year’s champions, Inter, received just under €50m in prize and TV money.
The Football League’s revenue from its television deal will be cut by 26 per cent from 2012-13. The BBC currently has a joint deal with Sky but did not feel in a financial position to bid. Against that background the Football League was able to negotiate a three-year deal at £195m compared with the current £264m.
The case of Karen Murphy is still being considered by the European Court of Justice but in the meantime the High Court has quashed a conviction given to a licensee for screening foreign satellite football. The broader significance of these cases is that they put at risk a significant revenue stream for the Premier League.
For the top twenty European clubs, broadcast income adds up to €1.9bn or 44 per cent of total revenue. In 2009 Manchester United earned slightly less than the European average at 37 per cent while for Arsenal the share was 38 per cent.
Viewers increasingly time shift shows using digital video recorders that allow them to skip adverts. They watch films via online video services such as Lovefilm. Sports can guarantee a large live audience with a young demographic.