Premier League’s BSkyB Contract To Receive Court Judgement
The Restrictive Practices Court will today pass judgement on the legality of the Premier League’s £743 million football broadcasting rights contract with BSkyB and the BBC. The Court is acting on evidence given by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which claimed that the League’s 20 clubs are effectively acting as a cartel in the way they sell TV rights to broadcasters (see OFT Embarks On Case Which Could Change The Future Of Televised Football).
The OFT has claimed that the current set-up is acting against the public interest by restricting the number of games shown on television and increasing the cost to viewers of accessing those games. If the High Court were to concur with the OFT, the floodgates could be open to allow individual clubs to negotiate their own TV contracts. The Premier League is likely to have claimed that this would benefit some clubs at the expense of others.
The Court is also to consider the implications of TV coverage of football as whole, in terms of how it affects investment in the game and attendance on the terraces. Judgement on the case is expected to begin at around 2:00pm today. Details will be available on Newsline as soon as they become available.
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