Premier League Hits Global Markets Hard

In the midst of a recession, the international demand for European soccer is at its highest. Specifically, England’s Premier League sent each one of the clubs abroad for a tour this summer. One example is Chelsea FC, a powerful English club, which played several friendly matches in the USA earlier this summer and pocketed $3.3 million dollars from the deal. Increasing demand and expanding markets in places like China, USA, and India have alleviated a lot of the financial discomfort the league had been experiencing. Fueled by these growing markets abroad, the Premiership expects annual revenue to exceed $1.65 billion dollars, a new record. The league will encounter substantial growth in 2010 due to many broadcasting and television rights contracts expiring at the end of this year. During the negotiations, the league expects to celebrate record setting contracts that will give the league some financial breathing room, if you’re wanting to try and get some financial breathing room through the premier league, you could look into betting on football results if you don’t already, with tips and reviews of the best gambling sites like https://8betting.co.uk/ it could be easy to pocket yourself some extra cash.

The Premiership offers matches in 211 countries and 575 million different homes that account for the overseas revenue. One country the league has experienced tremendous growth in is the United Arab Emirates. A broadcasting network in UAE, Abu Dhabi Sports Channel, won the rights to broadcast the games for $319 million dollars, three times the contract paid by Showtime Arabia last year. The Premiere League’s current overseas television contracts were signed in 2007 and expire at the end of 2009. The net worth of the overseas contracts surpasses $1.03 billion dollars, which equates to nearly a third of the leagues television revenue. Where will the league experience the most growth? China of course! The country currently contains a small market of 20,000 viewers because matches can only be viewed by audiences through pay per view. In 2010, China will offer matches to air for free allowing 30 million potential viewers rather than 20,000. The Premiere league has 97 broadcasting affiliates that it will be negotiating with for the next 4 months.