My Top Five Premier League Broadcasting Developments

As the new PL 13-14 season kicks off, never before has there been so many fascinating Premier League (PL) broadcasting issues. Many of the most eye catching commercial developments have resulted from the latest PL global tender for live PL rights.

What is especially noteworthy is the increased popularity in the UK internet and mobile packages that will be behind a pay wall for the very first time. This is all occurring at a time of continuing internet piracy and ongoing pub decoder card fall out. Here are my top five PL broadcasting developments to look out for in the coming year.

1. The Big Bucks: Sky and BT

   Sky and BT won the latest domestic live PL broadcasting tender, providing the PL with a record £3bn+ in revenue. It has been reported that such a figure is a 71% increase on the previous deal with Sky and ESPN.

   The average overall price per match paid by the broadcasters has risen from £4.7m to £6.6m. Sky secured five of the seven packages on offer (116 matches per season from the 2013-14 season for three seasons) after paying £2.3bn. BT won two packages worth 38 games per season for three years from the 2013-14 season, after bidding £738m.

   The fall out has resulted in a BT complaint ( which was ultimately rejected by Ofcom) about Sky's refusal to advertise BT Sport on Sky's sports channels. Sky likened it to allowing Tesco to advertise in Sainsbury's. The war of words didn't stop there. BT bosses accused Sky of being like a "Rottweiler running away from a newborn puppy". Sky obviously felt obliged to keep up with the animal metaphors accusing its competitor of being a "£22bn gorilla in puppy's clothing". Ofcom will however investigate Sky over its refusal to supply BT with Sky Sports on the YouView platform.

   The most interesting side effect has been the spill over into the broadband market with BT offering free BT Sport if consumers subscribe for a year to their broadband offering. Sky has hit back with discounted offerings to new and existing customers. BT's latest results show that they have 500,000 BT Sport subscribers with the vast majority existing broadband customers. This is in contrast to Sky's total subscription customer base reaching 10.4m and pre-tax profits of £1.26bn. With Sky's 4.9m and BT's 6.8m broadband customers, the goalposts have been moved to the complementary broadband market.

2. Mobile Rights: No such thing as a free lunch

   For the previous PL rights cycle, ESPN held the PL mobile highlights rights and Yahoo the...