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The Premier League has reportedly pivoted and opened another round of bids that will see ESPN, CBS, and NBC compete for U.S. broadcasting rights to the world’s richest soccer league.
A second round of bidding indicates the league will likely increase its original asking price.
Comcast’s NBC Sports has held U.S. rights to the Premier League since 2013 and pays $150 million per year. That deal expires at the end of the 2021-2022 season.
With a new deal, the Premier League is expected to pocket at least $1.5 billion over six years starting with the 2022-2023 season, providing each of the league’s 20 clubs with $39.3 million.
Over the past year, securing rights to international soccer has been an arms race.
- The Premier League extended its existing domestic rights deals in May with BT, Sky, BBC, and Amazon — worth a combined $7 billion — to 2025.
- The same month, Disney’s ESPN agreed to an eight-year rights deal with Spain’s La Liga valued at $175 million per season.
- Amazon secured U.S. rights to eight matches from each round of France’s Ligue 1 in June for $302.6 million per year.
The new U.S. rights deal will help the Premier League recover from the pandemic after its clubs lost $1.4 billion despite generating $6.3 billion in revenue for the 2019-20 season — the biggest collective loss in league history.
ESPN, NBC, and CBS have until Nov. 18 to submit their second-round bids.
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