Media coverage

England

A 2004 match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur

Television has played a major role in the history of the Premier League. The money from television rights has been vital in helping to create excellence both on and off the field. The League's decision to assign broadcasting rights to BSkyB in 1992 was at the time a radical decision, but one that has paid off. At the time pay television was an almost untested proposition in the UK market, as was charging fans to watch live televised football. However a combination of Sky's marketing strategy, the quality of Premier League football and the public's appetite for the game has seen the value of the Premier League's TV rights soar. It also saw the creation of regularly scheduled games on Sundays and Mondays, taking a page from the National Football League's Sunday Night and Monday Night games. In both cases, the featured TV games are normally the only ones played at that time.

The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. This is in contrast to some European Leagues, including Serie A and La Liga, in which each club sells its rights individually, leading to a much higher share of the total income going to the top few clubs. The money is divided into three parts:[20] half is divided equally between the clubs; one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way down the table; the final quarter is paid out as facilities fees for games that are shown on television, with the top clubs generally receiving the largest shares of this. The income from overseas rights is divided equally between the twenty clubs.

The first Sky television rights agreement was worth £191 million over five seasons.[21] The next contract, negotiated to start from the 1997–98 season, rose to £670 million over four seasons.[21] The Premier League's current £1.024 billion deal with BSkyB runs over the course of three seasons from August 2004. The league brought in £320 million from the sale of its international rights for the three-year period from 2004-05 to 2006-07. It sold the rights itself on a territory-by-territory basis.[22] Sky's monopoly was broken from August 2006 when Setanta Sports was awarded rights to show two out of the six packages of matches available. This occurred following an insistence by the European Commission that exclusive rights should not be sold to one television company. Sky and Setanta paid a total of £1.7 billion, a two-thirds increase which took many commentators by surprise as it had been widely assumed that the value of the rights had levelled off following many years of rapid growth. The BBC has retained the rights to show highlights for the same three seasons (on Match of the Day) for £171.6 million, a 63% increase on the £105 million it paid for the previous three year period. [23] Sky and BT have agreed to jointly pay £84.3 million for delayed television rights to 242 games (that is the right to broadcast them in full on television and over the internet) in most cases for a period of 50 hours after 10pm on matchday.[24] Overseas television rights fetched £625 million, nearly double the previous contract, [4] and there was also a smaller deal for mobile phone rights. The total raised from these deals is more than £2.7 billion, giving Premiership clubs an average media income from league games of £45 million a year from 2007 to 2010. They also receive smaller amounts from media rights for the domestic cups and in some cases substantial amounts from media rights for European matches.

The TV rights agreement between the Premier League and Sky has faced accusations of being a cartel, and a number of court cases have arisen as a result. An investigation by the Office of Fair Trading in 2002 found BSkyB to be dominant within the pay TV sports market, but concluded that there were insufficient grounds for the claim that BSkyB had abused its dominant position.[25] In July 1999 the Premier League's method of selling rights collectively for all member clubs was investigated by the UK Restrictive Practices Court, who concluded that the agreement was not contrary to the public interest.[26]

Worldwide

Promoted as "The Greatest Show On Earth", the Premier League is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over a billion people.[27] It is widely watched overseas, with matches being shown in 195 countries,[28] generally on networks owned and/or controlled by NewsCorp, which owns BSkyB and thus the primary UK and Ireland TV rights. NewsCorp has purchased ad space at some Premier League stadiums to promote Fox Soccer Channel, which is the company's US broadcaster (as in Britain, the rights are shared with Setanta Sport). Rogers Sportsnet in Canada carries several matches each Saturday. The Premier League is particularly popular in Asia, where it is the most widely distributed sports programme.[29] In the People's Republic of China, matches attract television audiences between 100 million and 360 million, more than any other foreign sport.[30] Due to this popularity, the league has held two pre-season tournaments in Asia, the only Premier League affiliated tournaments ever to have been held outside England. In July 2003 the FA Premier League Asia Cup was held in Malaysia, featuring three Premiership clubs, Chelsea, Newcastle United and Birmingham City, and the Malaysia national team.[31] In 2005 the Asia Trophy featured a similar format, held in Thailand and featuring the Thailand national team competing against three English clubs — Everton, Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers, the latter of whom won the trophy.[32] In 2007, the FA Premier League Asia Cup will move to Hong Kong, to be renamed the Barclays Asia Trophy and feature Liverpool, Portsmouth, Fulham and the Hong Kong FA Cup winning team, South China.

Radio coverage of the Premier League can also be heard in the United States on Sirius Satellite Radio.

The FA has faced difficulty fighting internet copyright infringement. In an effort to stop the broadcasting of streams of live games on the net they have hired NetResult, a company that specializes on protecting trademark rights on online. Although NetResult has cut down the number of site offering free streams some see their actions as heavy handed. The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that NetResult on behalf of the Premier League - emailed a warning to the website www.footyclips.com, an independent site that links to youtube videos, that forced its temporary closure. [33]