Riches continue to pour into Premier League clubs – 27 per cent rise in overseas media rights deals | OneFootball

Overseas media rights continue to boom for Premier League clubs.

BeIN Sports has now agreed to pay a 10 per cent rise as they extend their deal for another three seasons, this is for live TV rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

This new deal is just one of many that sees Premier League clubs coining it in even more, as when you take into account all of the new overseas rights deals for the next three year period, it is actually a 27 per cent rise in revenues for the Premier League from the various overseas media deals.

This is thanks largely to huge increases in the Premier League’s Chinese, Thai and U.S. deals.

The Athletic report that; ‘When combined with the new four-year domestic deals with the BBC, Sky Sports and TNT Sports, the league will earn £12.25billion ($16.55bn) in rights payments over the next three years.’

This is even more important when you take in the fact that the rival big European leagues are getting left further behind, as their TV deals, both domestic and overseas, are nowhere near what the Premier League brings in.

When you look at the Deloitte football rich list annual reports, details the clubs with the biggest revenues each season in world football, the top 20 and top 30 biggest revenue generating clubs are increasingly Premier League dominated. The TV deals are of course the massive factor in this and why a club such as say Bournemouth with gates of 11,000, is financially more powerful than all but a small number of clubs in the other European leagues.

BeIN Sports has now extended their grip on Premier League live TV rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to 15 years, starting in 2013 they have now guaranteed it to at least 2028 in the new deal.

Saudi Arabia have long wanted to rival BeIN Sports for Premier League TV rights and it was believed a possible challenge could have came about for this next three year cycle.

Amongst a wider dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, TV piracy issues were the cause of the long hold up before the Newcastle United takeover could be approved by the Premier League. When agreement was finally reached between Saudi Arabia and Qatar/BeIN Sports on those TV piracy issues in October 2021, only days later the Premier League gave the go ahead to the Newcastle United takeover and after a decade and a half, NUFC fans finally saw the back of Mike Ashley.

‘BeIN Sports has extended its deal for the Premier League’s live TV rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), boosting the league’s overseas media income and stalling Saudi Arabian hopes of creating a domestic rival to the Qatari broadcaster.

The new three-year deal runs from next season through until the end of 2027-28 and is worth approximately £550million ($742.3m), a 10 per cent uplift on the previous three-year cycle.

BeIN has been the Premier League’s media partner in the 24 MENA countries since 2013, a partnership that has benefited both parties despite Saudi attempts to break the Qatari firm’s hold over the region. Between 2017 and 2019, a state-backed digital piracy operation called beoutQ stole beIN’s feed in Saudi Arabia, and beIN was then banned in the kingdom until late 2021.

That dispute was part of a wider diplomatic and economic stand-off between Qatar and its much bigger neighbour. And while relations between the pair have greatly improved, Saudi Arabia is still unhappy that the dominant entertainment and sports group in the Gulf is Qatari, not Saudi.

Overall, the total value of the Premier League’s overseas media rights deals is up 27 per cent, largely thanks to huge increases in its Chinese, Thai and U.S. deals. When combined with the new four-year domestic deals with the BBC, Sky Sports and TNT Sports, the league will earn £12.25billion ($16.55bn) in rights payments over the next three years.’