Goal rounds up the top business stories of the week from Soccerex including the Premier League's growth, Women's Euro 2021 rights and one of PES 2020's new partners...
Premier League global audience climbs to 3.2bn
The Premier League has revealed that it reached a cumulative global audience of 3.2 billion for all programming watched during the 2018-19 season, a six per cent increase on the previous campaign.
Working in partnership with industry analyst Nielsen, the league also found that the cumulative audience for live Premier League programming rose 11% to 1.35bn.
The figures only account for standard in-home broadcast viewing and exclude out-of-home and mobile consumption.
The Premier League credited a significant portion of its audience growth to new free-to-air (FTA) coverage in several countries, including Brazil and South Africa.
There was also a continued increase in live audiences in the UK, where pay-TV broadcaster Sky Sports saw its viewership grow 12% during the campaign.
In total, the Premier League said it was shown in 188 of the world’s 193 countries recognised by the United Nations (UN).
The five countries without coverage last season were Afghanistan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Cuba.
Global audience figures have become of increasing importance for the Premier League after a dip in the value of its domestic television rights for the next three-year cycle to £5bn ($6.3bn).
The drop was offset by a 30 per cent rise in the price of the league’s international rights, which have been sold for a combined £4.2bn ($5.3bn) for the 2019 to 2022 season.
BBC secures Women's Euro 2021 rights
The BBC has secured exclusive live rights for UEFA Women’s Euro 2021. With the tournament taking place in England, the BBC will provide extensive UK coverage of every game across television, radio and online.
The deal follows the corporation achieving record ratings for its coverage of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, with England’s 2-1 semi-final defeat to eventual winners the US attracting a peak audience of 11.7m.
It made the game the most watched TV programme of 2019 in the UK and took an audience share of 50.8%. Additionally, all of England’s group matches in the competition surpassed 4m in average viewership.
The BBC has shown every match of the 2015 Women’s World Cup and Women’s Euro 2013, as well as offering live coverage and highlights of England’s games at the 2011 World Cup.
However, it was outbid by Channel 4 for the Euro 2017 rights, where the Lionesses similarly suffered semi-final defeat.
Euro 2021 takes place from 11 July to August 1. Wembley will host the final, with other games being staged at a number of Premier League grounds across the country, including those of Brighton, Sheffield United and Southampton.
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Bayern Munich partner with Konami
Bayern Munich have named video game developer Konami as a platinum partner.
The long-term tie-up grants the Japanese company comprehensive access to the Bundesliga giants’ first-team squad to allow for lifelike reproductions of the players in the eFootball PES 2020 video game.
Konami will also carry out a complete 3D scan of Bayern’s Allianz Arena in order to accurately recreate the 75,000-seater venue in the game.
As part of the announcement, Bayern forward Serge Gnabry has become an official PES ambassador.
The Germany international will feature on the cover of the upcoming edition of the game, which is due to be released in September, as well as be involved in multiple activations with the company.
"Konami has a long history of championing German football, and so we’re very happy to become a platinum partner of FC Bayern, the most successful German club in history," said Jonas Lygaard, senior director of brand and business development at Konami Digital Entertainment.
"With each year, our development team continues to surpass expectations and we are very proud to present FC Bayern’s epic Allianz Arena and its players in all their glory in eFootball PES 2020."