£5.136 billion. The national deficit? BP’s profit? The cost of the civil list? No. It’s what Sky and BT are paying the Premier League for three years of live football rights from 2016. Actually, come to think about it, not all that money will come from Sky and BT. Of course not, a substantial sum will come from you and me.
Sky, whose chunk of the £5.1bn comes to over £4bn, will be paying circa £11m a game. That strikes me as a lot of money for Liverpool v Manchester United, but Burnley v Sunderland? If you think that footballers earn too much, wait until this deal kicks in. Wayne Rooney’s reputed £250k a week will seem like the minimum wage in a couple of years.
So:
Subscriptions? Up.
Players wages? Up
Transfer fees? Up
Ticket prices? Up
No winners there then, apart from Sky, BT, Premier League players and agents.
Right now, I am paying a huge amount for the ‘privilege’ of having Sky and BT through my ever more expensive Virgin package. From 2015, I’ll wager that BT will be charging extra for their services when they gain exclusive rights to Champions League football and I don’t mind that at all, since I think their football coverage is crap compared with Sky and I can live without their Top Gear style presentation of rugby union. I’ll just get rid of it. Sky is a little different. I watch loads of their sport, from Spanish football, Super League, Golf (including the Ryder Cup and now the Open), the Rugby Union autumn internationals and, just occasionally, the odd Premier League game. Of all these, I’d happily lose the Premier League since I am not remotely interested in the vast majority of games. But Sky’s pricing is very cunning. I got rid of the movie channels and saved around a fiver a month. Doubtless getting rid of the sport would save me another fiver.
£122k a minute to cover Stoke City v Leicester City seems a little excessive to me, but then Sky won’t really be the ones paying it. And four minutes of Sky money would turn Bristol Rovers’ annual loss into a profit. Football certainly is not a place where we are all in it together.
There is no doubt that the Premier League is, as the money-men call it, an excellent product but I am far from convinced it is an excellent football tournament, or does anything to make the game better at all levels.
Football is eating itself and ultimately it will do a Mr Creosote. The dream for lower league clubs lies in ruins now, as the gap between top and bottom becomes totally unbridgeable, if it wasn’t already.
The Premier League is the world of Gordon Gekko and greed is good. Margaret Thatcher would have loved this deal, which is the main reason I hate it.
