The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has written to the Premier League and to Sky, BT, Amazon and the BBC, as the current holders of broadcast rights to the Premier League in the UK, to inform them that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is “minded to” make an exclusion order under the Competition Act 1998, allowing the Premier League to renew its current broadcast agreements with current UK broadcast partners for an additional three-year period starting 2022-23, without conducting the normal tender process.
In order to remain consistent with past commitments to competition authorities and to avoid a potential breach of competition law, and absent covid-19, the Premier League would normally have re-tendered its domestic broadcast rights in early 2021 at the midpoint of the current three-year cycle and would have concluded sales by now. However, covid-19 has had a significant impact on the value of broadcast rights for football across Europe. Under an auction, it is plausible that the value of the Premier League's domestic rights could drop.
The football pyramid receives the majority of its funding via the Premier League’s broadcast revenue. The Premier League and its clubs have already experienced financial losses totalling over £1.5 billion due to the impact of the pandemic, with further losses projected into next season. The wider football pyramid, from the championship through to women’s football and the grassroots, has also suffered financial losses due to the pandemic.
The Government have been clear that football has the resources to support itself financially to deal with the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic. To provide financial stability for the football pyramid, the Premier League has therefore requested that the Government make an exclusion order allowing it to renew its current broadcast agreements for an additional three years, on the same commercial and licence terms, with current UK broadcast partners, without conducting a tender process.
Under paragraph 7 of schedule 3 to the Competition Act 1998, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has the power to exclude, via a so-called “exclusion order”, certain agreements from the application of UK competition law where there are “exceptional and compelling reasons of public policy” to do so.
If such an exclusion order is made, the Premier League has committed to:
guaranteeing existing levels of financial support for the football pyramid for four years from 2021-22 to the end of the 2024-25 season. This includes solidarity payments, parachute payments, youth development funding and funding for grassroots football at existing levels, worth over £1.5 billion over the three-year rights cycle.
maintaining at least this level of funding even if its international broadcast rights decrease in value when they are re-tendered individually over the next year into 2022, and to increase the level of funding if its international broadcast rights exceed their current value; and