Sky Sports and BT have paid the Barclays Premier league over five billion pounds for TV rights to the competition for three seasons starting from the 2016/2017 season. The figure represents the highest fee paid to any league for coverage in football.
The TV rights deal is up by over a billion dollars from the existing deal and also features an increase in live matches. The new contract has Sky Sports and BT showing 168 of the 380 premier league matches per season at an average cost of just over ten million pounds per match. Sky Sports are expected to show 126 matches and the sports channel paid 4.1 billion pounds while BT paid 960 million to show 42 matches. Sky Sports’ deal covers early Friday matches and the Sunday clashes.
The premier league is prepared to invest 56 million in grassroots development and well, ticket prices might just drop next season.
