Manchester United Executive Vice Chairman, Ed Woodward, has said he expects social media and online purchase giants, Facebook and Amazon to battle out streaming and broadcast rights for the English Premier League.
This comes as EPL prepares to sell rights for the 2019-2022 cycles, with the domestic rights to be auctioned in 2018.
Sky sports and BT sports currently have the broadcast right of the EPL in Britain, with both parties jointly paying £5.1 billion over a period of three years, with the 2016/2019 rights currently generating above £3 billion.
The Social Media giants have shown keen interest in sports business. Earlier, it had made a £444 million bid for the Indian Cricket Premier League, while Amazon sealed a deal to pay £10 million for live streaming of Thursdays night NPL American football for the current season having replaced Twitter.
Meanwhile, the current rights which runs till the end of the coming season is worth £8.6 billion with about £3.5 billion paid for by overseas rights.
With the interest of Facebook and Amazon in the EPL bid, Sky sports and BT sports has to increase by £1.8 billion, up to 45 per cent on the £4.5 billion paid previously in order to blow off the threat.
Manchester United became the first club to break the £250 million barrier wage bill, as it published its latest annual accounts on Thursday. It showed an increase in revenues of £581.2 million, with a profit of £39.2 million, while a dividend amounting to £23.3 million was paid to shareholders.
Ed Woodward confirmed that Facebook and Amazon are expected to bid for EPL rights in his statement;
“Absolutely, I think they would enter the mix”. He added that “Anecdotally, there was strong interest in the last cycle and we’re hearing that around the Premier League table, but we’re also hearing that from a European perspective as well in terms of interest of in the Champions League and Europa League rights.
“In the wider picture, you have to look at what’s happening elsewhere at the moment. There isn’t any clear European sale to these kinds of partners at the moment. But looking at the interest Facebook and Amazon had in the Indian Premier League rights, anecdotally it sounded like big numbers”.
Premier League Executive Chairman, Richard Scudamore had earlier opened the door for new media to bid for the broadcast rights.
The latest development could see transfer fee and salaries of players rise as clubs would also experience increase in revenues and income.
Manchester United said, it expects to earn up to £30-40 million from this season’s UEFA Champions League. It also experienced increase in ticket revenues as all its matches ticket get sold out.
