BSkyB Denies Having Made £1bn Football Rights Bid

BSkyB has this morning effectively denied reports that the company has approached two major Premiership football clubs offering a £1 billion deal which would secure the company’s broadcasting rights to Premiership games until 2003.

The Financial Times this morning reports that Sky has held informal negotiations, ahead of the official tender process, with the chairmen of two leading clubs who have then passed the news to other clubs in the Premiership. Sky is understood to have offered the clubs more money for the remainder of the current contract, which expires in 2001, as well as a possible extension of the deal for a further one or two years. The new offer is reported to give clubs around 70% more than the current contract, valuing the total deal at around £1 billion.

However, the official line from BSkyB is that “negotiations have not yet started with the Premier League” over the new contract. A source said that it is for the Premier League body to decide the terms and timing of the tender process and not the chairman of the individual clubs.

When the official tendering is started, BSkyB will face much stiffer bidding competition than when it won the current £743 million joint contract with the BBC back in 1996. Earlier in the month the Premier League confirmed that the bidding process is expected to begin in ‘the next few months’ and a spokesperson for the League said that there is currently an ‘open field’ as regards possible groups clinching the new contract (see Negotiations Over Premier League TV Rights Imminent).

Interested parties are likely to include digital terrestrial operator ONdigital, ITV, the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5, as well as the cable companies NTL/Cable & Wireless and Telewest Communications. For Sky, the rights to broadcast exclusively-live football are extremely important as many subscribers to the company’s multi-channel satellite service have signed up as a result of its sports coverage. Football is arguably the most popular of these sports. Peter Berkley, business manager of commercial sales at Sky, has previously said that the majority of multi-channel subscribers are male and that they are attracted to the service first and foremost by sport.

BSkyB: 0171 705 3000 Premier League: 0171 298 1600