Premier League’s broadcast income to reach £10bn over next three seasons

The Premier League’s income from broadcasting deals will break the £10 billion barrier over the next three seasons with overseas rights worth more than domestic for the first time, clubs have been told.

International deals for 2022-25 will be worth £5.3 billion, up 30 per cent, with the domestic rights bringing in £5.1 billion and commercial contracts taking the total to £10.5 billion.

The figures, seen by analysts as being remarkable in the face of a general global rights recession brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, were outlined to club chairmen and chief executives at a shareholders meeting in London.

The clubs were told that the financial guarantees mean that the Premier League can now enter into negotiations with the English Football League about solidarity payments, including parachute payments.

The income from the new deals should result in the Premier League champions earning £176 million next season, up from £153 million this season, with the club finishing bottom guaranteed £106 million, up from £97 million.

There may be further increases in income if the Premier League decides to launch a programme to sell NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in the booming market for digital collectibles.

Under a change to the financial distribution rules brought into the Premier League in 2019, the increase in overseas deals will have the greatest benefit for the top clubs.

Half the money from any increase in total overseas rights is now distributed according to where a club finishes in the league table — so from 2022 the club finishing as Premier League champions should get an extra £25 million a season, with the distribution then on a sliding scale, to an extra £9 million for the club finishing at the bottom.

The fact that overseas rights will be worth more than domestic is a first for football — for example, 58 per cent of Spain’s La Liga’s TV income, which is less than half the Premier League’s, comes from domestic deals.

Apart from the Premier League and La Liga, all the other big leagues have experienced a drop in TV income in the past two years.

Kieran Maguire, a football finance analyst and author, said that there could now be a stronger push towards appealing to global rather than domestic audiences.

He said: “The Premier League is reaping the rewards of pursuing these foreign markets back in the 1990s and it is clearly the most popular league across the globe.

“One effect may be that there will be increased demands for kick-off times to appeal to global audiences. Fans in England and managers may not like 12.30pm kick-offs on Saturdays, but that suits the Asian market and 8pm on Saturday may appeal to the United States. International broadcasters usually have the rights to all 380 games, but they will want as few kicking off simultaneously as possible.”

The one concern for clubs about the increasing riches relates to Tracey Crouch’s review of football, which called for more distribution down the pyramid.

The Premier League told the government last year that it would increase its total solidarity payments to £1.6 billion over three years, from £1.5 billion, in return for being allowed to extend the domestic rights deals with Sky, BT Sport, Amazon and the BBC until 2025 without going out to tender.

The overseas distribution formula agreed in 2019 will result in half of any increase being split equally between the 20 clubs and half being awarded as a “merit payment” based on league position. Overseas rights have risen from £3.1 billion in 2016-19, £4.1 billion in 2019-22 and now to £5.3 billion for 2022-25, during which time domestic rights have been static.

The biggest rise is in the £2 billion paid by NBC for the 2022-28 rights, the same as paid by NENT for six years of Scandinavian rights.

The Premier League has also secured a big increase in the value of its TV rights in Brazil and the rest of South America, and most recently in Japan and Korea, where Eclat is to replace DAZN.