Media Guardian: English Football League agrees new £935m deal with Sky Sports

Story from Media Guardian:

English Football League clubs have unanimously voted to accept a £935m deal with Sky Sports which will lead to more than 1,000 matches a season being broadcast but which keeps the Saturday blackout in place.

The five-year deal, made up of guaranteed payments of £895m and £40m in marketing rights, will begin in 2024-25 and run to the end of the 2028-29 season. It represents a 50% increase on the league’s deal with Sky which expires at the end of next season.

Under the deal 1,059 league, EFL Cup and EFL Trophy matches will be shown live either on a Sky main channel or via a Sky streaming platform, replacing the iFollow service for domestic viewers.

The streaming platform DAZN had been keen to acquire the rights to screen all EFL matches and bring an end to the Saturday blackout period between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. The blackout stays but more matches will be available to stream, with six games across the Championship, League One and League Two set to kick off at 12.30pm each Saturday.

The deal means 26 out of 36 matches will kick off at Saturday 3pm – seven Championship matches plus 19 across Leagues One and Two.

The EFL acknowledges the changes in kick-off times can make planning difficult for fans and has committed to placing all live matches up to the FA Cup third round before the start of each season.

It is understood that based on the EFL’s distribution formula, Championship clubs will earn 46% more in guaranteed broadcast income and clubs in Leagues One and Two will be 25% better off.

EFL had announced Sky as its preferred bidder in early April. The deal means 10 league matches will be shown live each weekend. Every match in the EFL Cup and EFL Trophy will be shown live.

Sky is understood to have bought the EFL Cup rights ‘as is’ , despite the possibility of the competition having a significantly different look from 2024-25, with domestic calendar issues under discussion as part of the ‘New Deal For Football’ talks.

The EFL declined to comment on whether the deal included a rebate clause to Sky in the event that the format of the competition did substantially change.

All opening-round and final-day matches will be shown live, as will all games played on Bank Holidays and matches played in League One and Two during international breaks.

The deal promises greater parity in the number of times clubs are selected for TV coverage.

Clubs will gain a fee when selected for broadcast but a debate on how these will be allocated will take place later in the year.

No bid convinced the EFL to remove the blackout. The EFL estimated that removing it would cost £37m in matchday attendance revenue, and that had to be factored into any offer which sought to remove it.