Football finance experts urge caution over Premier League + price promotion
Football finance experts have urged the Premier League to show caution with its promotion of Premier League + as British fans learn of the premium they’re paying to watch the top flight.
Premier League + will launch in Singapore next week, ahead of the return of the competition next Friday, with every game broadcast live at a cost to locals of around £25 per month.
British fans, on the other hand, will need subscriptions to Sky Sports – or Now TV – as well as TNT Sports, via Discovery+, and a TV licence. It could cost Brits around £75 per month to watch all televised games – less coverage than is available on Premier League +.
Furious fans have pointed this out and football finance experts have urged the Premier League to show caution, stating that supporters are wise to how expensive it is to watch football within the borders of the country it is being played in.
Professor Rob Wilson told CityAM: “There’s a potentially uncomfortable precedent here.
“Premier League + effectively demonstrates that you can offer every match, legally and conveniently, at a relatively affordable price, while fans in the UK pay substantially more across multiple subscriptions and still can’t watch every game.”
Premier League + optics
Added Kieran Maguire: “There are many international locations where the Premier League is sold as part of an affordable sports package and sells well to viewers also interested in F1 and NFL.
“Domestically Sky and the Premier League have a symbiotic relationship over the years in that Sky needs the league as a mainstay of their sports portfolio and the league have benefited from Sky’s willingness to pay top dollar.”
Crucially, fans in Singapore will be able to watch matches with a UK kick-off time of 3pm on a Saturday, something that is banned in the UK. The Premier League has previously said VPN users will be blocked from the new streaming service, but that may not stop fans using them to access live games by other illicit means.
“For those fans who just want to watch Premier League and nothing else in terms of sports content then Premier League + does have its merits,” Maguire said. “What’s happened in France [collapse of media rights] is a warning that taking control of the rights and going direct to consumer does not always succeed.”
Added Wilson: “The disparity in cost for Brits becomes harder to justify amid a cost-of-living squeeze, particularly when VPNs make overseas services increasingly visible and piracy remains such a persistent problem.
“The risk for the EPL is that Singapore creates both a cheaper alternative and undermines the narrative that premium pricing and fragmented rights are unavoidable. Longer term, the question for the EPL is whether maximising domestic rights revenue remains sustainable if fans can increasingly see that a simpler, cheaper, all-in-one model works elsewhere.”