The UK Government has given its approval to a rights rollover that will allow the Premier League to sell its broadcast rights for the next three years under the same terms as the previous contracts.
An Exclusion Order will be issued under the Competition Act 1998 allowing a three-year renewal of the League’s UK live and non-live broadcast agreements with Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video and BBC Sport.
Under the previous contract, Sky paid £3.75 billion for its 128 live games a season, BT paid £975 million for 52 games, including Saturday lunchtimes and some midweek games, while Amazon paid an undisclosed fee for 20 matches. But even during the last renewal period the value of the rights fell by some 10%.
Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, said: “The Premier League welcomes the Government’s approval to renew our UK broadcast arrangements for the next three-year cycle.
“This allows us to commit to increasing our support to the football pyramid and communities for the next four years, which is vital following the significant impact that COVID-19 has had on football.
The Premier League already commits support to 72 EFL clubs, youth development, community organisations of 92 Premier League and EFL football clubs to deliver national programmes in schools and the community, as well as the 68 National League clubs to deliver community programmes.