By Chris Wright
As you’ve no doubt heard by now, it was announced yesterday that Sky and BT Sport have collectively spunked a record £5.136billion for the right to screen live Premier League matches for three seasons from 2016/17 – representing a hefty 70% price hike from the current £3bn deal in place.
Now, as with most of the sums bandied around at the top end of the game these days, £5billion is just an abstract amount of money with no real relevance to most people.
However, the chaps over at Sporting Intelligence have sought to put the TV deal into some sort of perspective for us common folk, noting that the cash Sky and BT are happily frothing away on football is actually a larger sum than the total GDP (i.e, the monetary value) of 54 entire countries…
Selection of the 54 nations with a GDP lower than the new £5.136bn ($7.84bn) Premier League deals. (This in $1000s) pic.twitter.com/PyQHKnTloz
— sportingintelligence (@sportingintel) February 10, 2015
Madness. Utter madness.