Premier League pledge on TV rights share-out
The European Commission was tonight studying the Premier League’s latest pledges of fair play over future broadcasting rights for televised football.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes had demanded “clarifications” by tonight that the terms for selling broadcasting packages from 2007 breaks the current BSkyB monopoly over the League’s live coverage.
Ms Kroes has threatened to take the League to court unless it provides for a fairer share-out of the spoils for BSkyB’s rivals.
The League had already offered improvements to open up the bidding, but after talks with League boss Richard Scudamore in Brussels Ms Kroes made clear she wanted the latest pledges in writing.
In a letter to Mr Scudamore last week she said she wanted more convincing that the League understood the importance of fair bidding arrangements ensuring that no one broadcaster dominates live coverage of matches of one of Europe’s richest football leagues.
Tonight a Commission spokesman said a reply from Mr Scudamore had now been received.
“The Commissioner will analyse the letter carefully to assess whether the clarifications she sought have been addressed.” said the spokesman.
The two sides have been wrangling for months over commitments from the League in a December 2003 agreement to open up the market.
Ms Kroes wanted firmer assurances that from 2007 each package of broadcasting rights will be sold individually to the highest bidder, and that the final stage of the broadcasting rights auction process will be handled by a trustee.
Tonight’s further clarifications concerned the precise kind of bids allowed, guarantees that the auction process will be “fair and transparent“, and an explanation of how the so-called “no single buyer” rule will work in practice.
A Commission statement tonight said the basis of the final deal will be the creation by the Premier League of “balanced packages showcasing the Premier League as a whole, and no single broadcaster will be allowed to buy all of the packages.”
It added: “The Commission will be making no further comment tonight.”
If the latest League response meets Commission requirements, the league will then be asked to put all the elements of the deal into a final formal proposal for the Commission’s endorsement.
BSKYB’s current three-year contract for exclusive Premier League live coverage, which expires at the end of the 2007 season, is currently worth just over one billion pounds to the Premier League.
But the Commission argues that, once BSKYB’s monopoly is broken, sales to rival channels would more than make up for the lower sums BSKYB would pay for non-exclusive live rights.
