Premier League braced for ruling of Europe’s top court over TV rights

Premier League lawyers and club chairmen are nervously awaiting the ruling on Tuesday of Europe’s highest court in a case that threatens to fundamentally rewrite the TV rights model that has led to a 20-year revenue boom.

The latest twist will be delivered on Tuesday in a long-running and high-profile case that has seen a Portsmouth landlady take all the way to the European court of justice her defence of her right to show Premier League matches at 3pm on a Saturday, having bought a subscription from a Greek broadcaster.

As soon as one of the eight advocate generals of the ECJ in February advised that the Premier League selling its rights on a territory-by-territory basis represented a “serious impairment of freedom to provide services”, the chief executive, Richard Scudamore, convened a team to examine every possible scenario.

In the short term, the decision could allow pubs to show matches on a Saturday at 3pm, which the football authorities have long argued would result in lower league attendances. It could also allow consumers to buy cheaper subscriptions from continental providers, assuming they had the correct kit, in preference to Sky.

In the longer term that would probably force the Premier League to sell its rights on a pan-European basis to a single media group – a scenario that could impact on its revenues and throw up its own European competition issues.

The Portsmouth landlady Karen Murphy, and the defendants in a parallel civil case involving an importer of cards from overseas, have argued that being prevented from buying in cheaper football from overseas is incompatible with EU law.

Premier League insiders believe that if the eventual consequence, after the ECJ verdict is passed back down to the high court for interpretation under UK law, is a requirement to sell rights on a pan-European basis there will be a significant but not catastrophic impact on its overseas revenues.

The prospect of potentially shattering the 3pm window rule could be dealt with, they believe, by simply not selling Saturday matches to broadcasters overseas.

Under its current rights deal, the Premier League realised a total of around £3.5bn. Of that, £1.4bn came from overseas and an estimated £350m-£400m from the European territories that will be affected by the ruling.

One option would be to auction its rights on a pan-European basis in the hope of creating competition between the biggest media companies, including BSkyB, and hoping that continued global growth could help mitigate any downside in Europe.

But the huge uncertainty created by the case is far from ideal at a time when the Premier League would usually be planning its next rights auction process.

After Tuesday’s ruling the case could take many months more to make its way through the legal process and the Premier League may be forced to plough ahead with its tender despite the huge uncertainty. The current round of contracts expires at the end of next season.

However the Premier League, which has argued that the opinion of advocate general Juliane Kokott is flawed and unfair, would also point out that it has repeatedly faced regulatory challenges to its business model that have not stemmed its upward revenue trajectory.

source: guardian.co.uk/football/2011/oct/03/premier-league-court-tv-rights