[jfman]

The claimed £300m a year (£1.2bn over 4) should have almost certainly won a package if they were serious. Over 5 packages that’s £6bn, and we already know the top dollar games go for a lot more on average. The current deal has Sky paying approx £9m a game and TNT approx £5m.

Sky have (again) correctly gauged the market, having paid less per game (for better picks) in the 2019-22 auction than the rights they held 2016-19. The rollover auction allowed them to maintain this position for less on an inflation adjusted basis.

Streamers - including some of the biggest companies in the world - have declined two excellent opportunities to enter this market. Three if you believe the League could have held an auction during Covid as many other sports bodies did - everyone knows my view they chickened out and this auction demonstrates why.

The big question for the league is how do they actually stimulate competition in the market for rights since even essentially giving them away to Amazon for six years didn’t work.

Sky aren’t (as you claim) “feeling flush”. They’re the incumbent with an established, proven business model that by the end of this next period will have monetised the rights for just shy of forty years.