- Population of Singapore 4.8 mio : SingTel paid £190 mio for EPL rights = £40 per person
- Population of HK 7 mio : EPL rights £146 mio = £21 per person
- Population of China 1.3 bio : EPL rights £33 mio = £0.025 per person
From today's Straits Times
LONDON: SingTel's successful bid to screen English Premier League football matches from next season has contributed to the huge cash windfall that the league reaped from the sale of its international broadcast rights.
According to The Independent, the Premier League has raised around £1.4 billion (S$2.95 billion) for the overseas rights for its games for 2010-13.
That is more than double the £625 million that the league earned for its overseas rights for 2007-10, with deals yet to be concluded for Russia and Albania.
The deal for the Singapore rights was highlighted by the English daily as one of the most lucrative for the league.
SingTel secured the rights last year after paying a massive amount - estimated at S$400 million - to trump a rival bid by the current rights-holder, StarHub. If the figure is correct, it is almost treble the £67 million (S$141.3 million at current value) paid by StarHub for the 2007-10 rights.
The league also received a huge financial injection in Hong Kong, where i-Cable paid close to £150 million to wrest the rights from Now TV, which paid £115 million during the last round of deals.
And there was also a massive outlay for the rights from the Middle East and North Africa, where the Abu Dhabi Media Company reportedly paid an amount ranging from US$150 million (S$210.3 million) to US$300 million to replace Showtime Arabia.
While the league was more than happy to pocket the huge amounts offered by those markets, it was prepared to make an exception for China.
Pay TV firm WinTV retained the rights for 2010-13 after paying US$50 million, the same amount that it paid for 2007-10. However, it has to be noted that currency exchange rate movements meant that the the league still earned £33.3 million compared to £25.6 million in 2007.
However, the new deal in China will involve the screening of at least one match per week on free-to-air television. This ensures that games can enjoy much higher ratings in the land of 1.3 billion people, a key market for the international brand growth of clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool.
The figures indicate that the Premier League's international broadcast rights are rapidly closing in on the amount that it receives for broadcasting the games in Britain.
The Premier League sold its live domestic rights for 2010-13 for £1.782 billion, an increase of only 5 per cent from its previous deals.
Given the enormous growth in international sales, the foreign rights are likely to overtake the home sales in the future.
5 comments:
I started watching and playing football along with the Bundesliga. I can still recall the orange called balls when they play in a snow covered pitch. Then came the EPL. Liverpool, Spurs (the trio), Everton, Nottingham Forest,Ipswich and Man Utd. Wonder whether people still remember Norman Whiteside. Then it became VERY commercial and soccer was never the same as before. On second thought, cable tv, im not sure whether its a blessing or a curse.
We are the laughing stock again. its not the first time and it wont be the last. and we are the suffering sporean......our government oni donated usd50,000 to haiti. Singtel might as well do something more positive. Not oni sporean, fifa scratching their head. The humanitarian in the world must be wondering too.
This is the results of our own truly unique "created competitions", btn singtel and starhub
Calculations based on very loose assumptions which may not be correct, but captures big picture near enough :=
1. 4 per household ie 1.2 mio households
2. Advertising revenue from EPL = S$100 mio. Balance paid for EPL rights S$300 mio for 3 seasons.
3. Need to recoup S$250 from each hh over 3 years ie apx S$80 per year per hh.
4. Clearly, only a % of hh interested in EPL. Not every hh will subscribe to EPL. S$80 is what SingTel needs to recover from each hh purely for EPL alone. Unrealistic and highly unlikely.
Is it any wonder that FIFA wants to squeeze us for more?
The law of competition will prevail. If the project is not viable the competition will die. Thus it will not be expensive if the demand is not there
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