The Russian Premier League (RPL) refused to renew the contract for showing matches of the national championship with Match TV and decided to hold a full-fledged tender for applications – it should take place before October 11. This was reported in the RPL official Telegram channel. Recall that under the current contract, Match TV had the right to submit an application subject to priority consideration, but it did not suit the clubs.
The RPL Board considered the proposal of Gazprom-Media Holding, which includes the Match TV channel, to conclude a new contract for broadcasting the matches of the Russian championship. The current contract was concluded in 2018 and expires in the summer of 2022. It provides that Match TV has a priority right to consider an application for a new contract period. The application arrived at the RPL on August 31 and was reviewed on September 8.
“The participants in the board meeting listened to the report of the working group on the implementation of media rights and considered the proposal of the current main broadcaster, which took advantage of the preemptive right and applied for the acquisition of rights to cover RPL matches in the seasons 2022 / 23–2025 / 26,” the message says. the board members decided to hold a competition for the exercise of rights to comply with the principles of openness in the choice of the broadcaster. The Board decided to hold the tender before October 11 ”.
Earlier, in addition to Match TV, which will also take part in the tender, the online services Okko (owned by Sber), Start (controlled by MegaFon) and Yandex were also interested in cooperation with RPL. According to unofficial data, Match TV offered for a new four-year contract, which provided for the transfer of all media rights to the RPL, according to various estimates, from 4.5 billion to 6 billion rubles.
The current agreement brings RPL only 1.7 billion rubles.
But it only applies to television rights – the league itself implements the commercial rights. It is not known whether the RPL will separate television and commercial rights this time, but, according to Championat.com sources, this is about at least splitting the media rights into several packages.
Note that, according to Nielsen, RPL media rights are worth 6.15 billion rubles. in year. However, the Hypercube company, which has developed a version of the reform of the Russian championship called “Jupiter-16” at the request of the Russian Football Union, believes that it is really possible to bail out 10 billion rubles for them. for the season.
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