Everton and Liverpool could be set for a financial boost after it emerged that the Premier League were looking at boosting the value of their media rights deal through added games in the next cycle.
The tender process for the domestic broadcast rights for the period beginning 2025/26 is set to begin later this year and the challenge for Premier League chiefs is to try and raise the bar financially domestically after rights in the UK remained flat from 2016 - largely owing to the rolling over of the last deal during the pandemic in order to provide some financial certainty to member clubs.
The value of the last domestic deal that was agreed for the three-year period between 2022/23 and 2024/25 was around £4.8bn, a figure that was surpassed last year by the value of international rights for the very first time, with more than £5bn achieved, thanks in no small part to the boost that the near £2bn US broadcast deal delivered.
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According to The Telegraph, the Premier League are now looking at making another 60 games available for live broadcast, a move that would mean that 260 of a possible 380 fixtures would be broadcast live. The 3pm 'blackout' would continue to be in effect, it was reported.
At present the rights are held by Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime Video, but it is anticipated that DAZN and Apple will both tender for some of the rights. Apple last year inked a multi-year deal with America’s Major League Soccer to become the broadcast partner to the competition, streaming games via its Apple TV+ platform.
The value of broadcast rights is what has been the major factor in the Premier League leaving rival leagues financially trailing for more than a decade, with the valuations of clubs having boomed, particularly for members of the so-called ‘big six’ due to the sheer value of the media deals that clubs can rely on.
The Premier League’s 2021/22 payment breakdown saw Everton, Liverpool and the other 18 member clubs for that season get an equal share of £31.8m from domestic rights and £48.9m from international rights.
Clubs also received facility fees for each time that they appeared on a live broadcast, with Everton bringing in £19.4m from their 22 games they appeared in during 2021/22. Liverpool received £25.3m for appearing 29 times. That worked out as a facility fee payment of around £880,000 for each club every time that they were shown on a live broadcast. Adding more games would mean more opportunities for clubs to add to that revenue year on year.
Any increase in rights would also be reflected in an increased equal share payment among clubs, taking the domestic total closer to the international equal share payments that are made.
For Everton, a club embroiled in a relegation battle and in need of being at the table for the Premier League’s significant revenues, an even greater broadcast package would help with their financial situation as well as appeal to investors, something that the club are currently locked in talks over.
Liverpool, too, are engaged with interested parties over taking a minority stake in the club, and the prospect of even greater media rights to be assured in the next cycle will be something that is taken into consideration.
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