The Premier League has agreed a new broadcast deal in China after terminating the £564m contract with PPTV earlier this month.
China was the Premier League’s most lucrative overseas television rights market after a three-season deal was agreed last year.
Yet, after PPTV withheld its most recent payment of £160m, which was due in March, the Premier League opted to terminate the deal.
The league has now agreed a new one-year contract with digital platform Tencent Sports.
It seems unlikely that the deal will come close to the £160m a year that the Premier League was making from the original PPTV deal.
The opening round of Premier League matches had been taken off air in China, which is considered one of the competition’s largest television markets.
It has been reported in the Financial Times that the new deal with Tencent involves both a fee as well as a revenue-sharing agreement based on subscriber numbers.
Premier League CEO Richard Masters has already reassured clubs that they will not be out of pocket following the collapse of the PPTV deal due to the fact the Chinese broadcaster had already paid for a large part of the contract.
Tencent currently has 114million video subscribers and has a $1.5bn broadcasting deal in place with the NBA.
In a statement announcing the deal, the Premier League also confirmed it will ‘continue to explore opportunities for free-to-air broadcast coverage in China for the 2020/21 season’.
That suggests an opportunity to bring in more revenue from the market to make up for the money lost from the PPTV collapse.
