The Premier League really is a licence to print money
While we are all busily getting on with watching the games and adjusting our Fantasy teams the real business of football is going on in some swanky meeting rooms in London. Today, the Premier League should announce who got what in the latest auction of the rights to show the various packages on offer and experts predict the numbers involved to be truly staggering.
The first round concluded on Friday, with no announcement made which suggests that every available package had more than one bidder, ensuring that the total price this time around will be higher than ever.
The current bidding process is for the rights from 2016-2019, and the experts say that the three seasons will be worth a total of £4.4billion (€5.923b), a 45 per cent increase on the price just three years ago.
The seven packages on offer cover all the various live game packages and BT is expected to be even more powerful than they were in the last round, when they nabbed the Saturday early game off Sky. The Fate of Super Sunday (4pm kick-off) is very much in the balance, with BT believed to be battling to take it from Sky.
Plus, the BBC say that US-owned Discovery Network (owners of Eurosport), and Qatar-based BeIn Sports are also in the hunt for some of the packages, further driving up the price.
All we know for sure is that the BBC have retained Match of the Day but the live rights are all up for grabs.
Ultimately, it will mean even more money in the pockets of every Premier League club, which means the era of big spending, and big wages, isn’t going away.
