In discussion of new markets for Premiership television rights, the emphasis has been on emerging countries in Asia alongside an increasing interest in Africa where GDP per capita is growing rapidly in some countries. Rights are now sold to more than 200 markets.
In discussion of new markets for Premiership television rights, the emphasis has been on emerging countries in Asia alongside an increasing interest in Africa where GDP per capita is growing rapidly in some countries. Rights are now sold to more than 200 markets.
The US market has been seen as a difficult one, given the popularity of American football, baseball and basketball while [ice] hockey has a much stronger presence than in the UK. Major League Soccer has been making steady and solid progress, whereas earlier attempts to establish the game in the US collapsed. Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports, commented: ‘The nice thing about this sport is its passionate following.’
Barclays Premier League secured a new television rights deal with NBC said to be worth $250m over three years, roughly three times what Fox had been paying. NBC will cover all 380 matches in the 2013-14 season, including 20 on the free-to-air NBC broadcast network. They will be shown on its Spanish language channels, Telemundo and Mun2. Each match will also be streamed live to desktop, mobile and tablets.
Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has been in the States promoting the deal and said it would make the US one of the five largest markets by revenue, after having been outside the top 10. ‘This will be a step-change in audience,’ he said. ‘The big shift is going from niche sports channel to broadcast.’
Mr Scudamore said that it seemed ‘completely improbable’ that rights inflation could continue at the 70 per cent rate of last year’s deal. He said, however, that he had been ‘pleasantly surprised’ at the rate of rights inflation over the past 15 years.