Accrington Stanley tweet
The Premier League is officially the biggest, baddest, soccer league in the world. There need be no more arguments.
The television rights deal it has awarded to BT Sport and Sky Television in the United Kingdom alone is £5.1 billion ($8 billion). This means that for every game televised in the United Kingdom Sky and BT Sport pay an average of £10.2 million ($15.69 million), internationally though, the deal could rise (according to the Associated Press) to around £8.45 billion ($13 billion).
No other league comes anywhere close to the Premier League in terms of how much money it generates from broadcasting income. The Bundesliga, for example, “rakes in” £628 million ($718 million) from its current television deal which runs through 2017.
Because of the huge amount of money the Premier League brings in because of its global image, Burnley Football Club (yes, Burnley Football Club) are actually richer than four-time European Championship winners Ajax. The same Ajax that Johann Cruijff, Marco Van Basten, and Marc Overmars played for.
Well, they’ve got nothing on Danny Ings and co now!
The upcoming TV rights deal will ensure that even the lowest placed team in the Premier League will receive £99 million. The previous deal meant that the lowest team, Cardiff last season, received £95 million. That money actually pushed the Championship side into the top 40 of Deloitte’s “money league” which depicts the richest clubs in the world.
In fact due to the previous deal 14 of the top 30 teams in the “money league” were Premier League teams — a record. Stoke City, by the way, rounded out the top 30.
According to Deloitte’s money league Manchester United’s earnings from broadcasting was £135.8 ($208.8) million, Chelsea Football Club earned £139.9 ($215.1) million in broadcasting rights, and Manchester City earned £133.2 ($204.8) million from broadcasting rights.
The only two teams higher than the Premier League’s top earners are Real Madrid (£170m, $261m), and Barcelona (£150m, $230m). The problem with Spain’s figures is that they pay their broadcasting rights on a per place basis, and not as most other league in Europe do with an equal share.
Without factoring in the new Premier League TV rights deal, Manchester United and Chelsea earn more money from broadcasting rights than Galatasaray, Everton, and Newcastle United earned in total revenue. If you combine the broadcasting rights earnings from each English team in the top 20 you would have a figure of £894.6 million ($1.375 billion).
That number is more than every other club in the money league combined (£797.1m, $1.225 bn) barring Barcelona and Real Madrid. The English teams in the top 20’s combined broadcasting rights of £894.6 million is only £39.4 million shy of clubs 21 through 30’s combined total revenue.That will climb even higher from 2016 onwards.
The eye-watering potential of the Premier League’s TV rights deal has been met with a mixed reaction.
Recently fans at a Bayern Munich game displayed a banner that read “This ‘aint no Premier League,” and another below it which snarks “no to the English model.” Britain’s Shadow Minister for Sport Clive Efford slammed the Premier League with regard to the size of the TV rights deal, saying that it doesn’t spend enough on grassroots soccer in the country. Efford was quoted as saying:
“There are incredible sums of money and it would be nothing short of criminal if none of the extra money goes to expand participation at the grassroots of football.”
It should be noted, though, Efford did open a £400,000 ($615,000) FA-funded 3G football facility in his constituency the day after the TV rights deal was announced. The Premier League, somewhat defensively, was quick to announce, after the inking of the TV deal, that it is investing £168 ($258m) million in grassroots soccer in the UK to build 152 artificial-all-weather 3G turf soccer fields.
Other sources have come forward regarding the TV rights deal not so much in criticism of it, but rather putting it into perspective with regard to the massive amount of money each team receives.
Accrington Stanley (a team in the fourth tier of English soccer) tweeted that the amount of money the Premier League receives for one televised game (£10.2m, $15.69m) could pay their wage budget for twenty years. FC United of Manchester have made it known that one game could also have paid for their brand-new stadium, Broadhead Park, and then some.
Bundesliga chief Christian Seifert says the EPL deal may force German football into less popular actions
The reality is that only around 5% of the income that the Premier League gets from broadcasting rights actually makes it down to the grassroots level. But the fact that this deal is 67% bigger than the deal that expires at the end of this season could soon see that number rise, and also, have a bigger impact on the fans who support the clubs.
It’s no secret that in recent years fans have abandoned going to Premier League match-days in favor of supporting their local, lower-league teams.
Manchester United have been fans going to watch FC United or Dagenham and Redbridge; Chelsea and other south-west London based fans going to Griffin Park to watch Championship promotion hopefuls Brentford Football Club.
The reason? Since 2011 ticket prices for every league in England have rocketed up by 11% that is almost double that the cost-of-living has grown in that period (6.7%). The average cost of the lowest priced season ticket in the Barclays Premier League has increased around 9% since 2012 to £508.55 ($782).
That could all be about to change, though, because of the TV rights deal.
The Football Supporters’ Federation has concluded that because of the new deal, Premier League teams could slash ticket prices by around £30 per ticket and still earn the same amount of money that they are earning now.
The group’s chairman, Malcolm Clarke, thinks that “three times the rate of inflation” (ticket prices are up 4.4% the last three years all over the Football League, rate of inflation is 1.2%) is “completely unacceptable” for an entity like the Premier League to keep raising their ticket prices.
The cheapest ticket you can buy in the Barclay’s Premier League right now is at Newcastle United for £15 ($23), the most expensive is Arsenal at £97 ($149) — an £82 ($126) difference. Barcelona have a season ticket that will cost you £103 ($158), no men’s club in the entire United Kingdom offers a season ticket at that price or lower.
However the Premier League for me doesn’t get enough credit. It is lambasted around the world for “ruining football” with its high wages, big-money teams, and foreign investors. It is the business side of the Premier League that has brought the creme-de-la-creme of foreign talent to our television screens season after season. The reason the Premier League is so big, so strong top-to-bottom, so exciting, and its clubs so successful is because of careful and shrewd negotiating with foreign markets.
The money is a good thing for the Premier League, and ultimately, for world wide soccer. The Bundesliga may be left behind significantly with its current rights deal, but this is promoted Bundesliga Chief Christian Seifert to ask:
“Are we [German Football Executives] ready, looking at the new television contract, to take unpopular measures, if necessary, to be able to keep the best players in the world in the Bundesliga?”
He has been backed by other German football officials like the managing director of Wolfsburg Klaus Allofs who says that German football has catered to fans wishes but now “there will have to be compromises.”
The Premier League’s TV rights deal will only be a good thing for English football.
It will distribute the talent farther and wider.
If other leagues cannot figure out how to make their brands more global, you could see a situation in the near future whereby English teams become so strong that the Barclay’s Premier League needs perhaps 6 Champions League berths rather than 4.
So Bayern Munich fans, and Bundesliga fans, can protest that the Bundesliga “‘aint no Premier League,” and “down with the English model” — but it is the “English model” that will turn their league into a world power… if they want it to be.
The longer other foreign leagues do not follow the example of the Premier League, it’s less likely they will be able to keep talent in their leagues, and they will continue to fall behind in terms of overall strength and excitement.
