Shake Your Money Maker

While much of the focus last week was on Setanta winning rights to two of the six UK Premiership TV packages (and Sky securing the remaining four), now is a good time to consider how much money the Premiership will make from the deal.

Consider these stats (courtesy of the Independent newspaper from England):

1. The Premiership will earn a staggering 1.7 billion pound deal from its live UK TV rights in the three seasons from 2007-08 onwards.

2. Those earnings represents a 67% increase compared to what the League earned the last time the rights were sold.

3. The avalanche of new cash (reportedly 13 million pound per team) will fuel an upsurge in spending on transfers and wages.

4. Sky will pay 4.76 million pounds for each of its games.

5. The highest-earning club will see its income from Premier League TV money alone jump towards 50 million pounds a year, while the bottom club will be guaranteed at least 25 million pounds.

6. When revenue from highlights and foreign rights’ are added, the Premier League expects to make around 2.3 billion pounds in total from TV and other broadcast media in the three years from 2007. I’ll say that again: 2.3 billion pounds.

Money talks, so after this World Cup expect a flood of foreign talent to enter the Premiership. This is where the money is and this is where the best foreign stars in the world will be going.