What is right is not profitable, and what is profit is not reasonable.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “FN Business” (ID: FN-24H), author : Wufu.
Both sides insisted on the saying “I broke up first, and the other side was wrong.” It was very unfriendly between the lines, leaving no room for “continuing the front.”
On the evening of September 3, Beijing time, the Premier League and its domestic broadcaster PP Sports announced the termination of their contract.
Both sides insisted on the saying “I broke up first, and the other side was wrong.” It was very unfriendly between the lines, leaving no room for “continuing the front.”
The impact of the epidemic on commercial events continued to ferment and eventually became irreversible.
Arrears and refunds
On the evening of September 3, the Premier League officially issued a statement stating that it had terminated the broadcast agreement with China’s domestic broadcaster PP Sports.
The Premier League official only announced the results and said it would not comment on the incident.
But the British media are all crazy.
The “London Evening Flag” reported that the decision to terminate the contract was made after a legal dispute between the Premier League and the Chinese broadcast partner. Suning’s PP Sports defaulted on the 160 million pounds that was supposed to be paid in March. The communication and negotiation between the two parties failed, and the cooperation was finally terminated.
The Times published a similar report and also mentioned that the Premier League may sell the copyright to another Chinese broadcasting company.
After the Premier League’s statement, PP Sports issued a statement stating that after many rounds of talks, PP Sports and the Premier League have differences in copyright value. It is a pity that they have not reached an agreement. Although PP Sports has overpaid the rights to the Premier League in accordance with the agreement Cycle costs, but PP Sports will still terminate its cooperation with the Premier League.
In other words, PP Sports stated that it has paid the arrears, but still wants to terminate its cooperation with the Premier League. The focus of the contradiction lies in the “copyright value”, and the two sides have disagreements on the commercial value of the broadcast rights of Premier League matches in the context of the epidemic.
In the first half of this year, the Premier League was suspended for three months, and it was not reopened until June 17. The suspension of the event will undoubtedly reduce the commercial value of the broadcast rights of the event.
During the suspension of the Premier League, its overseas broadcasters also requested refunds. British domestic broadcasters such as Sky Sports and British Telecom Sports requested a refund of £330 million from the Premier League club. The Nordic Entertainment Group, which owns the 6-year Premier League copyright in the Nordic region, also requested the copyright owner “according to the contract” during the suspension of the epidemic. Clause compensation”.
TodayIn June of that year, the Premier League and Sky Sports reached an agreement to refund 170 million pounds of broadcasting fees. The condition is that it will be postponed to the end of the 2021/22 season, before Sky Sports pays the scheduled fee normally, so as to protect the cash flow of the Premier League and the clubs.
According to the “Daily Business News” report, PP Sports has paid half of the total agreed fee when the actual start of the three-year copyright period of the Premier League is less than 20%. In other words, in the three-year copyright When only 20% of the period was executed, PP Sports paid 50% of the copyright period. Obviously, from this perspective, PP Sports is the party that loses more when the two parties terminate cooperation.
Combined with these reports, the truth of the incident is about to emerge.
On the one hand, it is the value of the copyright of the event.
PP Sports and the Premier League have disagreements on the value of the copyright of the event during the epidemic. In the case of other broadcasters agreeing to refund the broadcast fee, PP Sports not only could not get a refund, but also paid 50% of the copyright fee in advance.
The other aspect is payment progress.
PP Sports has confirmed that it has paid 50% of the total agreed fee when the actual start of the three-year Premier League copyright period is less than 20% of the schedule. But the British media still stated that PP Sports owes money, indicating that the Premier League not only does not refund fees, but also wants PP Sports to pay up to 80% of the fees in advance.
This should be outside the contract, because PP Sports mentioned the “excess prepayment” in this statement. 50% of the agreed fee has been paid, and the excess of 160 million pounds has also been paid in accordance with the agreement. In this case, the cooperation will be terminated. Expressed attitude.
The performance of the British media is even more disappointing. Not to mention helping the Premier League to collect money, it has been stirring up the muddy waters. The so-called Premier League paid the copyright to another broadcaster in China. I don’t know whether it is speculation out of nowhere. At present, no company in China has said that it wants to take over.
Money dominance
At the end of July this year, CCTV changed Premier League matches from broadcast to recorded broadcast.
Previously, Arsenal player Özil had made inappropriate remarks, but the Premier League did not impose any penalties. Arsenal only issued a painless announcement, claiming that this was a player’s personal behavior and had nothing to do with the club. .
The general manager of the NBA Rockets, Morey, also made false statements. The NBA officials refused to apologize, and CCTV stopped broadcasting the NBA, which has not been restored.
The Premier League not only did not stop the players from making false statements, but also refused to apologize afterwards. CCTV’s suspension of live broadcast of the Premier League is a very obvious warning.
Different from the NBA, CCTV’s suspension of the Premier League also has deeper political considerations. It involves strong political significance and is not convenient for too many comments. To find out its root cause, the keywords are “UK”, “Huawei” and ” 5G”.
The Premier League, the full name of the English Premier League (Premier League), is the highest level professional football league under the English Football Association, formerly known as the English Football Champions League.
The Premier League is one of the “Five European Leagues”, composed of 20 teams, and the Super League is responsible for the specific operations. The Premier League has always been regarded as one of the best leagues in the world and the highest-income football league, known as the “printing league”.
Sky-high copyright fees and broadcast fees are the main source of income for the Premier League.
At the beginning of this year, according to a report released by UEFA, the total revenue of the 20 Premier League clubs in the 2017-18 season reached 5.4 billion euros. Not only did it exceed 3.2 billion euros for Bundesliga, 3.1 billion euros for La Liga, and 2.3 billion euros. The Italian Serie A and the 1.7 billion Euro Ligue 1 are almost equal to the total revenue of the remaining 617 European clubs except for the four major leagues.
In the 2016-2019 season, Sky Sports and British Telecom jointly won the local broadcast rights of the Premier League to reach 5 billion pounds, and the overseas broadcast fees during the same period also reached 3 billion pounds, which is equivalent to the four major leagues of La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 sum.
According to the Premier League official statement, the Premier League’s revenue share includes: UKLive (the number of broadcasts in the UK), Equal Share (the average dividend of the broadcast), Facility Fees (the dividends are distributed according to the number of broadcasts, the more broadcast, the more income), Merit Payment (Premier League ranking bonus, the higher the ranking, the more income), Overseas TV (average dividend for overseas broadcast) and Central Commercial (average dividend for core commercial advertising).
In mid-August this year, the Premier League announced the 2019/20 season Premier League bonus and TV revenue share. Liverpool’s share was the highest, reaching 175 million pounds. The income of the three teams of Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea also exceeded 160 million pounds.
Among the 20 Premier League teams, only Watford and Norwich have a split of less than 100 million, but they also reached 97.6 million pounds and 94.4 million pounds.
In addition to copyright fees and broadcast fees, the Premier League is very good at making money in other ways.
In the Deloitte Football Fortune List, there are 6 Premier League teams in the top 10 world football clubs. Among the top 20 most profitable clubs in the world, there are 9 Premier League teams. This is enough to prove the “money dominance” of the Premier League.
The wealth code of the Premier League is very simple, it is record and fans, but the Premier League is better than other leagues.
At the record level, the difference between the strengths and weaknesses of the Premier League’s teams is smaller than that of other leagues. The root cause is the more equitable income distribution policy of the Premier League. The difference in revenue sharing between strong and weak teams is not large. The rich can attract better players. Players are the protagonists of the game. The overall strength of players between different teams can be reduced to ensure the intensity of the game.
The competition is excitingp>
The dispute between the Premier League and PP Sports is a purely commercial struggle. In the case of holding the broadcast rights but unable to maximize the benefits, PP Sports can only choose the least loss method. The suspension during the epidemic will inevitably bring great losses to the Premier League, and it will inevitably choose the smallest one in several markets of different scales and assume a tough posture.
It’s helpless if you can’t get it right.