The Russian Premier League, the top division of domestic football, is targeting a 50 per cent increase in the value of its next broadcast contract as it emerged that two clubs have agreed rights deals with local broadcasters ahead of the start of the 2017-18 season.
The 2017-18 campaign commences tomorrow (Saturday) with the Premier League entering the final season of its current rights deal with privately-held broadcaster Match TV.
In May, Premier League president Sergey Pryadkin said negotiations had commenced with Match TV over an extension, but added that the organisation was open to other offers.
Speaking to state news agency Tass, Pryadkin has now said: “The current contract will end in May 2018. We had previously started negotiations, the initiative came from us, and from Match TV. I want to thank the channel for their cooperation, they spent a great deal of work, but we are starting a new phase. I want to have an increased (proposal) by 50 per cent, but they may want to keep within the same parameters.”
In September 2015, the Premier League signed a three-season deal with pay-television broadcaster NTV Plus, which also acquired international rights for the 2015-16 to 2017-18 campaigns. The NTV Plus channels have since fallen under the Match TV banner and have been rebranded.
Meanwhile, Premier League clubs Ufa and Rubin Kazan have assigned rights to local broadcasters for the 2017-18 season. Ufa, which commences its campaign at Tosno tomorrow, said it has become the first Premier League club to acquire rights to its matches and hand them over to a local public-service broadcaster.
BCT will broadcast Ufa’s games, commencing with Saturday’s season opener. Meanwhile, the sport.business-gazeta.ru website said Rubin Kazan has struck a similar agreement with local channel THB.
Rubin opens its season with a home game against Krasnodar on Sunday. It is unclear how the deals affect Match TV’s agreement with the Premier League.