EPL clubs are "in line for a huge hike" in TV income beginning next season, with "revenue from domestic and global TV rights deals on course to top" $7.9B (all figures U.S.) when overseas contracts are completed next month, according to Owen Gibson of the GUARDIAN. In addition to the EPL's three-year, $4.7B deal for domestic live rights with Sky and British Telecom announced in June, and the $283M deal from the BBC for Match of the Day highlights, the league is "well on course to improve" on the $2.2B it brought in from overseas broadcasters under the current deal. If total revenue breaks the $7.9B barrier "as expected," the amount that the '13-14 EPL champion will receive is "likely to top" $159M for the first time. In Brazil, rights have been "stripped out for the first time from a pan-continental deal and sold to Fox and ESPN for $50m, more than four times what the rights were believed to be worth as part of the previous South American deal" (GUARDIAN, 11/12). Gibson in a separate piece notes EPL CEO Richard Scudamore on Thursday will brief officials from the 20 EPL clubs "on the latest progress and is likely to tell them that all of its overseas deals will be wrapped up by Christmas for the period from 2013-14 to 2015-16." Contracts covering the Middle East/North Africa and Southeast Asia/Australasia "should be tied up" within the next two weeks, with the "final round of European deals to follow before Christmas" (GUARDIAN, 11/13).
