Breaking news from the Daily Mail this morning that 160 Premier League games won’t be broadcast next season – which is a serious chunk of top flight games – in anyone’s estimation.
Trying to understand why English football fans are being short-changed wasn’t obvious, but the closest answer came from trawling through the Swiss Ramble feed which revealed that domestic rights in the UK have been in decline, by 7% last season.
Based on the 7% fall in domestic rights and 34% increase in overseas rights, domestic revenue will drop by £110m, but overseas revenue will rise by £295m, resulting in a net increase of £185m a year to be shared among the 20 clubs in the Premier League.
Swiss Ramble
The trouble is, while the broadcasters play fast and loose, in the midst of global pandemic, people are changing their habits. Fewer games broadcast means another nail in the coffin of pubs with commercial subscriptions.
A cultural change has swept the nation, with people altering the way they shop, the work, even the way they get their hair cut.
As far as paying up to 3 different broadcast rights holders through the eyeballs for the privilege of watching games, against a background of redundancies sweeping the nation, TV subscriptions are rapidly looking like expensive luxuries.
The piece in the Mail remarks that the Premier League are conscious of not over exposing their product. Which has to one of the most detached and cavalier things I’ve ever heard.
While football’s chief executives ponder their portfolio, I predict a boom in the sale of dodgy fire sticks.