EPL: We welcome online bidders
August 7, 2017
The head of the English Premier League would welcome bids for Premier League football from the likes of Amazon or Facebook.
Executive Chairman Richard Scudamore said that there was “no ceiling in sight” after Sky and BT spent £5.14 billion (€5.69bn) on three seasons of rights in 2015. Scudamore declared “… we are technology-neutral” as it readies the auction the next period. Last week it was revealed Amazon Prime had taken the rights for ATP Tennis from Sky with a bid of £50m.
“We would need some distribution criteria and to make sure it was readily available across platforms and everything else, but as long as it was widely available and distributed properly, we wouldn’t rule those [online providers] out.”
Scudamore conceded it was improbable that the league would “achieve the same compound growth” as between 1992 and 2015, reported The Times, but did expect the bids to continue to increase, despite the softening of ratings for EPL games across services.