MUMBAI: It happened with the last media rights cycle (2019/20 to 2021/22). And it continues with the latest deal for the next media rights cycle (2022/23 to 2024/25) that the Premier League has renewed with incumbent Disney Star a “couple of weeks ago”, SportzPower is given to understand.
Exactly what has happened? As SportzPower had predicted in mid-February while reporting on the fact that for the first time ever, international media rights revenues for the Premier League will cross the domestic broadcast haul, India has witnessed yet another significant fall in rights value (for the third cycle running).
While international TV deals will total £5.3 billion in the 2022-25 cycle, India has seen yet another fall in value, by as much as 30% – from $78 million to $55 million (including $5-6 million as marketing commitments), SportzPower has been informed by industry insiders tracking the development.
As per information available with this sports business news platform, Sony Pictures Networks India and Viacom18 had also put in bids which were all in a similar ballpark, but the Premier League chose to go with its long-term legacy partner in India. In fact ever since network television came to India in the ’90s – first with ESPN Star Sports, later with Star Sports and now with Disney Star.
Harking back to the aforesaid article: “On the matter of international rights, the collapse of the Chinese football rights market and the expected massive fall in rights value from India for the next cycle (await a separate SportzPower report on the India piece) are the only downers.”
Additionally, $55m is the breakeven number that this platform had calculated as being the “true value” for the India territory rights over the next three EPL seasons.
It breaks down thus:
TV distribution revenue – Rs 55-60 crores
TV + digital advertising – Rs40-45 cr
Syndication – Rs 10 cr
Digital subscription – Rs15-20 cr
For the record, this website had reached out to communications executives from both the Premier League and Disney Star for an official comment but none was forthcoming till the time this article was published. The report will be suitably updated if any response comes through.
To rewind to 2019, while international media rights value that accrued to the Premier League had risen by about 30% (from £3.1 billion to £4.2 billion), India saw a second consecutive correction (down from $90m in the previous cycle to $78m).
For context, it needs noting that the scale of the international increase in broadcast deals is even more remarkable considering that the international TV revenues for the 2013-16 cycle was £2.42bn – a more than doubling of the revenue figure over the six intervening years. For the 2016-19 cycle the international TV revenue grew to £3.82bn, and for the 2019-22 cycle to £4.27bn.
As for what has happened in India, it has been the diametric opposite. For the 2013-16 cycle Star India had committed a completely unviable $145 million to retain the rights (and more importantly shut out rival Sony, which was launching its first pure play sports channel Sony Six at the time, and had also aggressively bid). For the 2016-2019 cycle, Star India agreed terms at a still unviable $90m. And for the 2019-2022 cycle, there was a further downward correction to $78m.
Could it go even lower when the next bidding cycle comes around. NO! SportzPower believes that from the next cycle on, the only direction is up. By just how much will depend on the viewership and revenue upsides that streaming will deliver over the next three years.
Related Reports
2019-2022 cycle: EPL intl media rights up 30%; India a drag
Premier League intl rights revenue exceeds domestic for 1st time
