The Biggest Sports Broadcasting Deals In The World

Over the years, broadcasting deals in sports have been a major source of income. Television rights over the most loved sports have been worth millions which makes it difficult for small media houses to afford them. While there are some winning in the market, the NFL broadcast deal is leading when it comes to the biggest sports deal.

NFL ($110 billion)

The NFL signed new media rights agreements with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Amazon collectively worth about $110 billion over 11 years, nearly doubling the value of its previous contracts.

The contracts, which will take effect this year in 2023 and run through the 2033 season, will cement the NFL’s status as the world’s most lucrative sports broadcasting deal. They will also set the stage for the league’s owners to make good on plans to expand the regular season to include a 17th game and charge more for broadcasting rights.

The league’s soaring revenues will aid far-reaching plans for the next decade, a period when team owners hope to expand the NFL’s already robust calendar, make deeper inroads into overseas markets and increase the football audience via streaming services. No other sport or major competition TV deal comes close to this.

NBA ($24 Million)

The current NBA broadcasting contract started in 2016 and is reportedly worth a total of $24 billion and is expected to run till 2024. Now, the NBA is looking at a deal valued in the $75 billion range from 2025 according to CNBC. It remains to be seen if the NBA would get this prepared deal as the viewership has been declining in recent years.

The major contributor to TV viewership’s decline is more live-streaming websites that have been dominating of late including those that are illegal and steal the content. To remind everyone of the details: All the money from that broadcast contract (as well as most gate receipts and more) is split between the league and its players, a divide that is currently roughly 50/50 (it’s more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea). Increased television revenue will lead to a higher salary cap and, with that, higher salaries.

IPL ($6 Billion)

The world’s richest cricket competition, last year signed a groundbreaking broadcasting deal of $6 billion starting this year till 2027.

Viacom18, backed by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, secured streaming rights until 2027 for $3.05bn. Disney-owned Star India retained the TV contract for $3.02bn. The two deals combined are more than double the $2.4bn Star paid for the previous five seasons of the IPL. The figures put the IPL among the highest-ranked sports leagues alongside the NFL in the US and the English Premier League in cost-per-match terms. The winning bid for the TV rights – a period that incorporates 410 IPL matches – was sold for about $7.36m (£6.1m) per game.

The digital streaming rights from 2023 for the annual two-month competition were sold for $6.4m per match.

Premier League (£5.1 Billion)

The Premier League is televised in a total of 188 of the world’s 193 countries recognised by the United Nations. It is the biggest football league in the world. In 2021, the English Premier League signed a new 3-year broadcasting deal worth £5.1 billion. The deal is expected to run till 2025.

The league has a viewership of over 1 billion people worldwide. China remains the country with the most viewers as they have over 300 million in total as per study collected by Statica in 2021. The football fans’ choice league is reported already engaging in a new deal which will see them nearly doubling the current deal in amount.

MLB ($3.1 Billion Expected To Reach $12.4 By 2028)

ESPN and Major League Baseball announced a seven-year contract extension in 2021 that will see the network carry 30 regular-season games per year plus wild-card games. The deal is worth $3.1 billion as the initial start and is expected to reach $12.4 in a seven-year period.

The deal, which runs through 2028, allows ESPN to show 25 weeks of Sunday Night Baseball and the MLB Little League Classic. In addition, ESPN will be able to create new MLB content for ESPN+, including highlight-driven programming. There will continue to be a game nearly every day on ESPN+, subject to local blackout restrictions, and all games on ESPN or ABC can be simulcast on ESPN+.

ESPN Radio will continue to carry regular-season games and the full MLB postseason, including the World Series. The deal also includes increased highlight rights for studio content, including digital shows like BBTN Live, and Spanish-language rights for ESPN Deportes.

Bundesliga (€4.84 Billion)

Germany’s Bundesliga agreed on a 4.4 billion euro deal for domestic broadcast rights for the four years from 2021/22 onwards, with Sky Sport awarded the prime package of all Saturday games. The new deal sees Sky showing over 200 Saturday games per season, with DAZN able to exclusively show 106 games on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The current deal will see the league receiving about 1.1 billion per year from the deal.

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