DTVE Data Weekly: The state of the European football market

Source: Omdia

Three of Europe’s five leading football leagues have launched tenders for domestic TV rights in the next cycle. Lega Serie A in Italy awarded its rights in October 2023, but the LFP in France failed to attract any bids and will have to continue negotiating. The English Premier League published its invitation to tender October and announced new deals in December 2023.

While Tier 1 sports rights, including league football, remain vital to the pay-TV proposition, it is now unarguable that the once-hyperactive market has cooled off.

One reason is that European pay TV is on a plateau. Europe has not seen anything like the level of cord-cutting that has transformed the US pay-TV market, but the dynamic of growth in satellite TV in particular, which drove increases in rights for league football, has disappeared. Over the last few cycles, the main driver of rights inflation has been competition between the incumbent and a challenger.

The arrival of BT on the scene in the UK led to a 69% hike in fees for the Premier League in 2013–16 and another 70% increase three years later. Competition between Sky and MediaforEurope in Italy drove Serie A costs up by 50% in 2015–18, while Orange in France increased costs by 48% in 2008–12. Now, Sky and BT successor TNT Sports coexist peacefully, while Orange and MediaforEurope have dropped out of pay TV altogether.

With their market maturing, pay-TV operators are not as dependent on sports as they used to be. Films have always been as much a part of the Canal Plus proposition as sports, and now the pay-TV group has set its sights on original drama. High-end drama is also key for Sky in Italy and the UK, and managers are even prepared to countenance not having league football. It may be that is a negotiating ploy on the part of Sky in the UK, but Canal Plus in France opted out of the Ligue 1 auction, even though it has transmitted French football since 1984.

Amazon, YouTube, and now Apple have entered the sports rights market in recent years. However, Amazon is not a big spender (despite its colossal cash reserves). Amazon dropped out of the bidding for Premier League rights, having held them for two three-year cycles. The total value of the rights will be £6.7bn ($8.6bn), a 3.5% increase on the annual value. Four of the five packages went to Sky, which will have rights to at least 215 matches a season, with TNT Sport taking one package of 52 matches.

Tim Westcott, Omdia’s senior principal analyst, Digital Content & Channels.