Yesterday the Premier League announced that BT has bought the rights to screen two packages of games, representing 38 matches per season, from the 2013/2014 season until the 2015/2016 season. Sky paid £2.28bn for the other five packages, representing 116 games per season.
It has not been confirmed whether BT’s games will only be available via Sky packages, as has been the case with ESPN and Setanta, which previously bought broadcast rights for a minority of matches. BT is to set up a TV channel focusing primarily on football before the start of the 2013/2014 season.
A spokesman for BT told the Publican's Morning Advertiser's sister title M&C Report it was “too early to tell” how the company will broadcast matches to pubs.
“Now we have secured the rights we can explore these options. We would like to make it available to as many pubs and clubs as we can,” he said.
The total cost for both broadcasters is £3.018bn, a 42% increase on the £1.764bn figure for the previous three-season deal.
Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s chief executive, said: “This is a good result for our customers and for our business. It means that Sky Sports remains the home of Premier League football and that viewers will continue to enjoy our live and exclusive coverage until at least 2016.
“In what was a very competitive tender process, we are pleased to have secured the combination of rights that we wanted, providing certainty for us and our customers. Whilst the cost is higher, we have capacity for this increase through the combination of excellent work on cost efficiency across the business and choices over other future spending. As a result, we remain confident of delivering our financial plans, in line with our expectations, unchanged, in each year of the new deal.”
Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “The Barclays Premier League continues to provide excellent football and enthralling drama as we saw last season. The value this drives for our rightsholders is evident and we are extremely pleased that this has been realised for our UK live rights.
“We welcome BT as a new Premier League broadcast partner. They are a substantial British company that is at the leading edge of technology and infrastructure development. They are clearly investing in quality content to use on their platforms and when combined with the reach and pull of Premier League football they will deliver new ways in which fans will be able to follow the competition.
“These are exciting times for both the football and media worlds and we should all be proud of the value both industries contribute to the UK culturally and economically.”
Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), said: “With so much more paid for broadcast rights than last time, this deal must not lead to a huge increase in prices for pubs.
“Pubs need a more competitive pricing policy, as well as alternative providers. Live sport is a key part of the pub for millions of customers, and publicans have endured huge price hikes from Sky, year after year. This has been on top of other huge pressures, such as a 42 per cent hike in Beer Tax in the last four years.
“We will continue to raise our concerns over prices with both Ofcom and with the company itself.”
Kate Nicholls, strategic affairs director for the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR), said: 'We would like to see a package deal where pubs don't have to pay twice for the same service.
"This has come right at the point of time when Sky announces price changes and this significant increase in what they have paid means they will have to get back the money from somewhere.
"We would urge them not to look at the pub industry as a cash cow to be milked."