With the next round of broadcast rights negotiations for the Premier League set to take place in 2025, the English top-flight is reportedly set to offer a four-year deal to interested parties.
Since forming in the 1990s, the Premier League has offered a maximum of three years for each broadcasting rights cycle. While helping to boost the value of the league in each cycle, this has not offered long-term security for broadcasters.
The league is interested in offering four-year deals to incumbent buyers, which will likely be the prominent domestic broadcasters Sky Sports and TNT Sports – formerly known as BT Sport – as well as Amazon and potentially a new buyer in DAZN.
This is the latest in a string of negotiation tactics by the Premier League, which has recently been open to offering an additional 70 games per season, bringing the total number of televised games to 270 in a bid to secure the best possible deal.
The Premier League has also been interested in offering fewer packages and an increased inventory to buyers to maximise bids.
The current domestic broadcast deal between Sky Sports, TNT Sports and Amazon is worth more than £5bn and was initially inked in 2018 before being re-negotiated in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Offering longer broadcasting contracts would bring the Premier League in line with some of its European counterparts.
Italy’s Serie A has been holding out for broadcasters to match its €1bn-a-year valuation and has extended the contract lengths to make this more appealing, whilst the French Ligue Professionnel de Football (LFP) is looking for a similar asking price from bidders to hand over the country’s Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 domestic and international rights.
Broadcast rights to showcase Premier League games are significantly the most valuable and lucrative across Europe, with its current near €6bn deal considerably larger than the next largest deal – Germany’s Bundesliga which is worth €4.6bn.
