The Economic Impact of TV Rights in the Premier League 2017-2019

This research proposal investigates the economic impact of TV rights on the Premier League from 2017 to 2019. It examines the significant role of broadcasting revenues in the league's financial landscape, including their influence on club budgets, infrastructure investments, and overall economic contributions. The report explores the Premier League's global appeal, its impact on tourism, and its contribution to employment within the UK. The research employs a qualitative approach, utilizing secondary data from various sources to analyze the revenue streams, particularly the impact of TV rights sales. The study aims to answer specific research questions about how TV rights affect the budgets of London teams and assess the broader economic implications of the league. The methodology includes descriptive research design and a transformative constructivism research philosophy. The report outlines the data collection process, ethical considerations, and a detailed timeline for the research project.

Research Proposal

Abstract
The prosperity and success of Football Premier League, which is mainly grounded in the
quality of competition and condition of clubs, has developed a ‘cycle of growth’. Quality
Football and vibrant stadiums delivers significant contribution to economy of UK that lead to
further development of infrastructure and society. This Premier League competition mainly
includes 380 matches which are played for a time duration of nine-month season and each run
on commercial basis. This result in generation of large amount of revenues, which flow to
Premier League’s clubs and beyond. Further, these collection of revenues from ticketing,
broadcasting and merchandising have then enabled Clubs for investment in entire aspects of the
game. It includes their squads, training facilities and stadia which will in turn, generate more
interest in form of competition for sport lovers in UK and across the nation. Furthermore,
Premier League football’s appeal to both local and international audiences has resulted in
increasing the inward economic impact of the competition through attracting the broadcasting
revenues, international tourism, and investment from overseas channels. The Premier League at
worldwide level is available in more than 185 countries, that further broadcast to an estimated of
730 million homes. Along with this, impact of Premier league can also be analysed in terms of
employment, where it has provided a number of jobs to people either direct or indirect way.
Furthermore, concerning on its contribution on economy, this league also helps in enhancing
tourisms, where increasing number of sports lover from overseas proves beneficial for
organisations that deal under hospitality industry. It includes hotels, transportations, restaurants
and travel industry, whose revenues are continuously rising with increasing in tourism.
The following summary report provides the information about the estimated contribution
made in terms of economic of the Premier League of 2017 – 19 season. These estimates are
evaluated by analysing economic impact of the Premier League and its Clubs, with a range of
other industries like tourism, broadcasting, gambling and more, that are either directly and
indirectly supported via competition. Furthermore, influence of TV rights on budget of Premier
League and Clubs are described which includes investment in facilities, organising and
promotional campaigns of games, as well as various community programmes also. Building on
an appeal i.e. broadcasting rights highly influenced the Premier League, major focus in given on
collecting the data of 2017-19, which would further help in evaluating its economic impact also.

Based on this concept, for adequately investigate the topic, inductive research approach is taken,
because it concerns more on generating new theory by analysing the past information.

Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
Title - "The economic impact of TV rights in Premiere League Football between 2017-2019".....1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Preliminary Literature Review.........................................................................................................1
Research Question and Objectives...................................................................................................4
Methods............................................................................................................................................4
Time Scale.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Title - "The economic impact of TV rights in Premiere League Football
between 2017-2019".
Introduction
Premier League contributes a major role in enhancing economy where, every match is being
watched by millions of sport lovers, who travel across nation to follow their team. Along with
this, more than millions of fans watched games on television (Cox, 2018). In this regard, interest
of fans in sports helps in generating a vast amount of revenues by ticketing, merchandising and
broadcasting the live and repeated telecasts. In particular, broadcast rights’ sales has been
considered as one of the most significant streams of revenue for Football Premier League and
Clubs, which highly influence their budgets. The present research is based on this theme i.e.
economic impact of TV rights in Premiere League. For this purpose, a number of secondary
resources like articles, journals and websites are explored.
Preliminary Literature Review
The growth within popularity of British Football Sports is majorly on capability of Premier
League and Clubs, for realising the value in terms of competition. The main revenue streams that
contributes to economic development includes the ticket sales, broadcasting and media,
merchandise, advertising, sponsorship and other additional aspects of stadium (Carreras and
Garcia, 2018). Along with this, sale of broadcast rights which is mainly earned from the strong
Premier League competition which reaches a wide range of audience. Furthermore, with growing
popularity of English club football as well as with emergence of pay broadcast and TV market, it
becomes possible for Premier League to achieve the broadcast revenues. The Premier League is
also considered as the largest among ‘big five’ Leagues of Europe on the basis revenues. It has
determined that in 2013-14, The English Premier League Clubs has earned from all rights of
broadcasting near about £1.7 billion (Premier League's International Broadcasting Rights,
2017). This would take as more earned revenue which is equal to the amount earned by
remaining three largest European leagues. Furthermore, at particular note approx. £722 million
as international broadcast revenues, has been received in 2013-14 by Premier League, which is
greater than the combined amount of local and global broadcast revenue individually.
1

Figure 1: Premier League TV Rights, 2015
According to BBC news, it has determined that Premier League in 2015, has sold the TV
rights for a record of approx. £5.136bn, to its games, which is more than 71% as compared to
previous year record. Hereby, channels like Sky has paid more than £4.2 billion for five among
seven packages of TV (Premier League in record £5.14bn TV rights deal. 2015). While the other
competitor like BT has paid for remaining two TV packages over £960m as per record of TV
rights auction. This deal has run for next three years i.e. from 2016 to 2019. In this regard,
amount paid by Sky is 83 percent more than it has paid three years before. In contrast, BT has
paid 18% more, thus, it has increased the economic impact of Premier League UK. As per the
Chief Executive - Richard Scudamore of Premier League, it has been evaluated that income
which is raised from TV rights auction is generally invested in making improvements and
enhancing more facilities to stadiums by clubs (Schreyer and Torgler, 2018). Along with this,
some portion of income as well also invested in "youth development and good causes". The main
aim behind making investment to stadiums is provide best matches as possible to fans. In this
2

regard, considering the income of Premier League’s broadcasting from the year 1992 to 2019,
the income is continuously rising with increasing number of followers, as depicted by below
graph –
Figure 2: Rise of Premiere League income,2019.
The Premier League with support of Clubs, has generated over billions of income in every
match, that directly contribute to raise national GDP as well. Through the study on A Sport
England, it has been estimated that the overall direct GVA of football and other sports industry
to economy of UK, that includes all activities of economic such as consumption, expenses or
participation of sport, like ticket and equipment sales etc.is £20.3 billion (Nielsen, Storm and
Jakobsen, 2019). This would reflect that the Premier League as well as its Clubs are mainly
responsible and associated for contributing of over £1 of each and every £10 of value, which is
received by sports in the UK. Along with this, economic impact of this Premier League is also
considered as significant as per international perspective. In the year 2013 – 14, with total
revenues of over £3.3 billion of Clubs the Premier League of UK was gain third largest sports
league in terms of revenue of the world, after the National Football League (NFL) and Major
League Baseball (MLB).
The Premier League also plays major role in enhancing tourism by attracting sports fans of
other countries to watch match in the stadium (Haugen and Heen, 2018). Therefore, thousands of
sport lovers come from overseas in every match, which helps in stimulating the demand across
3

hospitality sector. This would also support a growing media, hotel industry and transportations to
earn revenue from tourism. It represents the significant impact of Premier League on economy,
where gambling revenues refers to a key pillar of UK brand and its image abroad (Leeds, Von
Allmen and Matheson, 2018). Furthermore, The Premier League and its Clubs in UK also
support in reducing unemployment by giving millions of full time equivalent (FTE) jobs to
people.
Research Question and Objectives
Research question: “How the TV rights have impact on the budgets of Premiere League London
teams between 2017-2019"
Research Objectives:
 What are the Premiere league’s Broadcasting rights during 2017-19?
 How does the TV rights influence the budgets of Premiere League London teams
between 2017-19?
 What is the economic impact of TV rights in Premiere League Football between 2017-
19?
Methods
In order to gather information on a particular topic, a number of methods can be used such
as qualitative and quantitative research approaches, primary and secondary analysis etc. In
context with present project, for investigation on such a wide concept i.e. Economic impact of
TV rights in Premiere Football League, following methods will be taken –
Research Design
This part includes research design, which is considered as the systematic set of procedures
that are used for gathering data and analysing the research variables. In general, four types of
research design are used that are descriptive, experimental, explanatory and exploratory. In
context with present research, descriptive research design is chosen.
Research approach
There are three main types of research approaches present that are qualitative, quantitative
and mixed approaches. Under qualitative research, data is analysed in theoretical manner, while,
statistical methods are used for quantitative type of research. In present context, the approach
4

which is chosen for gathering data on Premier League, is qualitative research. It will be utilised
for conducting the investigation to get the research outcomes in set period of time.
Research Philosophy
It provides a specific direction to researchers about way in which data on a particular topic
needs to be collected, analysed and interpreted. Research philosophy also considers as an integral
part of research methodology that helps in conducing investigation in specific way. As
qualitative approach is chosen for doing the present research, therefore, transformative and
constructivism research philosophy will be taken.
Data collection process
The information under a research can be gathered by making use of both external and
internal sources like books, journals, questionnaire, surveys, face-to-face interviews and more.
There are two types of collection tools which are described below:
Primary Research: The original information is gathered under primary research from
internal sources like interviews, questionnaire and different types of surveys.
Secondary Research: The existing data is being analysed under secondary research, by
collecting data from books, journals and other external sources.
Under present research, external sources will be used to collect data on Premier League, to
analyse its economic impact on a nation.
Ethical Consideration
As effectiveness of research outcomes are mainly depended on way of conducting a
research, therefore, for this purpose, it becomes essential for researchers to consider ethics. In
this regard, for conducting present researchers, project makers takes data only from authenticate
sources only, so that reliability and accuracy of result can be maintained.
Time Scale
ACTIVITE
S
WEE
K 1
WEEK
2
WEEK
3
WEEK
4
WEEK
5
WEEK
6
WEEK
7
WEEK
8
Identifying
title of study
5

Conduct
Preliminary
Literature
Review
Problem
statement
Setting
deadlines
Literature review
Selecting
techniques
for research
Data
Interpretatio
n and
analysis
Evaluating
results and
findings
Presenting
conclusion
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cox, A., 2018. Spectator demand, uncertainty of results, and public interest: Evidence from the
English Premier League. Journal of Sports Economics. 19(1). pp.3-30.
Carreras, M. and Garcia, J., 2018. TV Rights, Financial Inequality, and Competitive Balance in
European Football: Evidence from the English Premier League and the Spanish
LaLiga. International Journal of Sport Finance. 13(3). pp.201-224.
Leeds, M.A., Von Allmen, P. and Matheson, V.A., 2018. The economics of sports. Routledge.
Haugen, K.K. and Heen, K.P., 2018. The competitive evolution of European top football–signs of
danger. European Journal of Sport Studies. 6(1).
Nielsen, C. G., Storm, R. K. and Jakobsen, T. G., 2019. The impact of English Premier League
broadcasts on Danish spectator demand: a small league perspective. Journal of Business
Economics, pp.1-21.
Schreyer, D. and Torgler, B., 2018. On the role of race outcome uncertainty in the TV demand
for Formula 1 Grands Prix. Journal of Sports Economics. 19(2). pp.211-229.
Online
Premier League's International Broadcasting Rights. 2017. [Online] Available Through:<
https://www.end2endfootball.com/home-1/2017/10/13/premier-league-tv-rights-situation>.
Premier League in record £5.14bn TV rights deal. 2015. [Online] Available Through:<
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31379128>.
The Economic Impact of Premier League. [Online] Available Through :<
http://www.sportsthinktank.com/uploads/ey-the-economic-impact-of-the-premier-league.pdf
>.
7