MEDIA FORUM: Will Sky lose the live Premiership League rights?

A redrawn Premier League live football rights contract will soon be up for auction. Could the rights be carved up by the EU, Alasdair Reid asks.

Does football need Sky more than Sky needs football? It's almost impossible to imagine the one without the other these days. Sky and football, particularly Premier League football, has been the TV market's dominant theme for a decade now. The beautiful game has been the main driver of the UK's move to multichannel TV and into the digital age. And this has been a two-way street - Sky has helped haul football out of the dark days of the 80s (ugly violence, decaying stadiums, the dark shadow of the Hillsborough disaster) and into the 21st century.

But Sky has no divine right to the Premiership contract - as we may be about to find out. Although the current Sky deal doesn't run out until the end of the 2003-4 season, manoeuvring is already underway, with the clubs and league management meeting to draw up a tender document.

Will Sky face a credible rival bid this time around? A few months ago, when everyone believed the bottom had dropped out of the football rights market, most observers would have considered it improbable. But (contrary to the experience in other European markets) the Premier League is probably going to hold its overall value at somewhere just under the level currently paid by Sky, which is pounds 367 million a season for a total of 66 live games.

The equivalent figure this time around is expected to be pounds 300 million, all things being equal.

But all things might not be equal: the European Union's Competition Commission would like to see the rights carved up in such a way as to give more than one broadcaster access to live league games. Some commissioners argue that the Premier League may be acting as a cartel in holding collective negotiations for all games and would like to see individual clubs given the option of selling their rights on an individual basis. That ultimate meltdown is unlikely to happen - but the league may feel it wise to break the rights up into a number of packages.

Sky declined to comment, but would the breakup of its rights package be good for the TV market, for advertisers and, indeed for the game itself?