£5.1 billion for Premier League TV rights

By Kate Holton

Pay-TV group Sky has agreed to pay 4.2 billion pounds to show 126 live English Premier League matches a season from 2016 to 2019, paying well above the expected amount to beat fierce rival BT to the best games.

Following one of the most highly-anticipated broadcast auctions of recent times, the Premier League said Sky had won five of the seven packages of rights, with BT winning the last two. BT will pay 960 million pounds for their three year contract.

“Sky will pay 1.4 billion pounds per annum for each of the three years of the new agreement, representing an 83 per cent increase over the cost of the existing contract,” Sky said.

Combined, the two firms will pay 5.1 billion pounds for the three-year rights deal, well above the 4 billion pounds that analysts had expected and a 68 per cent rise on the 3 billion pounds the two firms paid for the current three-year deal.

After three days of bidding, Sky won the key Sunday afternoon games, while BT will show Saturday evening matches.

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