English Premier League club Manchester City received a record £60.6 million (€74.8 million/$97.2 million) in broadcast-related payments on its way to winning the 2011-12 league championship.
The league said the total payment to City, who clinched the title in dramatic fashion on the final day of the campaign on Sunday, was the highest received by any title-winner in the 20-season history of the competition.
Each club received £13.7 million for the season – an equal share of 50 per cent of the total income generated by domestic rights deals – plus £18.7 million each from the league’s overseas rights deals. Twenty-five per cent of the remaining domestic rights income was split on the basis of where the teams finished in the table, with each place worth £755,000 per club – so Wolves, the bottom-placed club, got £755,000 and Manchester City, the top-placed club in the 20-team division, got 20 times that, £15.1 million. The final 25 per cent represented ‘facility fees,’ based on the number of times a team’s match was televised.
“The Premier League’s income distribution mechanism rewards sporting success in the league while also guaranteeing a significant amount of broadcast revenue to each club in order that they can plan from one season to the next,” Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said. “We believe the way we distribute broadcast income plays a part in allowing each club to compete at the highest level.”
UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB attracted a peak audience of 3.19 million viewers for its live coverage of City’s 3-2 title-clinching win against Queens Park Rangers on Sunday. The average audience for coverage of the match on the Sky Sports 1 channel, from 2pm to 6pm, was 1.72 million viewers – a 12.3-per-cent audience share.