The English Premier League (EPL) is nearing setting a new overseas record by earning 2 billion dollars, as the league looks to seal a deal for the United States’ rights. Currently, the US rights are under Combat’s NBC Sports, and the broadcaster has held this right since 2013 by paying 150 million dollars per year. However, the deal between EPL and NBC is set to end after the 2021-22 season.
Following this, EPL had organized bidding for selling the broadcasting rights in the US for one of the hottest properties in the football world. However, an NBC spokesperson said, “We certainly want to continue our great relationship with the Premier League.” But for that to happen the broadcaster needs to load off quite an amount of money as EPL looks to earn maximum profit from the deal.
Currently, the bidding has been taken to a second-round where it should be tough competition between ViacomCBS, Walt Disney, and ESPN to secure the EPL rights in the USA. While NBC will also try hard to continue their long relationship with Premier League.
This new deal will commence from the start of the 2022-23 season and will continue until the end of the 2027-28 season. While the Premier League will sell all its 38 matches in a single block rather than in separate packages.
The Premier League is tripling its asking price for the broadcasting rights is mainly because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the last two seasons, all the clubs and leagues in the world have suffered a major setback in terms of revenue, as there were strict restrictions for controlling the coronavirus.
Following which the matches were played behind closed doors without the fans and audiences, and the ticket sale is one of the lucrative businesses in football. As a result, all the clubs had to go through huge losses, including Premier League clubs. So, in order to recover that money, Premier League has doubled the price of their broadcasting rights, while it knows somebody will be signing it as it is one of the most popular football leagues in the world.