Premier League Broadcasting Rights Revenues Explained
A. pl Distributions (2)
The Context: The Latest Premier League Deal
Sky and BT won the latest domestic live Premier League broadcasting tender, providing the Premier League with a record £3bn+ in revenue for the UK market. Such a figure is a huge increase on the previous deal agreed with Sky and ESPN. The total global revenue figure is believed to be around £5.5bn.
The average overall price per match paid by the UK broadcasters has risen from £4.7m to £6.6m. Sky secured five of the seven packages on offer (116 matches per season from the 2013-14 season for three seasons) after paying £2.3bn. BT won two packages worth 38 games per season for three years from the 2013-14 season, after bidding £738m.
Prize Money for Premier League Participation
The Premier League distributes its UK broadcasting monies to its member clubs in the following way: 50% is split equally, 25% is based on the number of television appearances with a stipulated minimum amount (called facility fees) and 25% based on where that club finishes in the league (called merit payment). The overseas broadcasting monies received from broadcasters outside the UK is distributed equally amongst the clubs too. The table below sets out the distributions for the 13-14 season.
Despite finishing second, Liverpool received the highest total payment any club has ever received in a Premier League season with £97.5m. This is because the club was picked the most (28 games) for live broadcasts in the UK. As mentioned previously, the club received £43m more than they did in the previous season with over £1.5 billion being distributed to the 20 Premier League clubs. On a more general level, every place in the Premier League is now worth £1.2m with the bottom club guaranteed £62m. This means that any clubs promoted to the Premier League will receive over £120m based on their year in the league and four years' worth of parachute payments worth over £60m.