Domestic rights were awarded to Sky Sports in record-breaking deal earlier this year
The EFL has issued the RFP for its international broadcast rights.
It is looking for proposals running from 2024 until 2028, with 2028 the year it has been reported to be planning to bundle its overseas rights with the Premier League. Interested bidders are required to submit their responses by 5pm on Friday, 17 November 2023.
The EFL agreed a £935 million deal with Sky Sports for its domestic rights earlier this year, which sees over 1,000-games a season being aired until the end of the 2028/29 campaign. The growth in matches being shown by the broadcaster effectively means that the league’s D2C platform iFollow will be replaced by a new service from Sky in the UK.
Ahead of that agreement, Broadcast Sport spoke to EFL chief commercial officer Ben Wright about its strategy, with Wright saying that at that point a global rights deal, such as Apple’s with the MLS, was not off the table, and that, “The one thing we’ve got is a lot of volume. So 1,656 league matches alone, and on an average weekend at the moment in the UK, which is our biggest market, we’re making 5%, that product available live in 2022. Is that a contemporary approach?”
The EFL currently makes 215 matches available worldwide. Pitch International produces and distributes the EFL’s world feed, with IMG facilitating the host broadcast for one Saturday 3pm fixture in that as well as being the production partner for the iFollow D2C platform.
Wright has now said: “With global TV audiences of hundreds of millions across 187 territories alongside matchday attendances at their highest for 70 years, there is clearly a high demand for EFL football both here in the UK and across the globe.
“We are therefore inviting partners who can help us to broaden international distribution and exposure, improve the quality of our content and to explore innovative commercial and marketing avenues so that we can strengthen our global audiences, improve profile and ultimately deliver increased broadcast revenues into the member clubs.”
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