Premier League extends TV rights deal with Sky, BT Sport, Amazon

The Premier League announced that the current broadcast agreements with Sky, BT Sport and Amazon, has been extended by three years and will now run till 2025.

The original deal, agreed in 2018, was worth £4.7bn, which was a decrease from the previous deal and the Premier League saw it as imperative to agree on a new one following the COVID pandemic.

The usual auction-style bidding has been shelved for this deal, to safeguard funding and to stop fears that TV rights money has peaked.

How is the Premier League going to use these funds? What have they planned?

This deal also creates £100m in extra funding, which will be used over the next four years to help the lower league football teams and communities that have been particularly affected by the pandemic.

The money will also be used to support other projects such as the Premier League’s research into head injuries and various anti-discrimination groups around football.

As part of the new deal, BT Sport will help to avoid fixture congestion — which has been the front and centre of issues for top clubs —by moving their normal 12:30 slot to an evening slot, should the fixture include a team that had played a late European game that week.

Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters stated the deal would have “a positive impact on the wider industry, jobs and tax revenues and will enable us the maintain our financial commitments”.

Masters also expressed his gratitude and thanked the Premier Leagues business partners “for their continued commitment to the Premier League and support for the football pyramid.”

This deal means for fans that there is no need to cancel any subscriptions. Football will continue on the channels we’ve been watching the Premier League on for the past couple of years.

So, football stays exactly where it is but its financial future is a lot safer than it has been over the past year. Sky, BT and Amazon will broadcast the football we all love till at least 2025.