The enormous amounts of money broadcasters are willing to pay for the rights to show live football astonish most people. The figures have continued to rise despite the impact of a recession, slow economic growth and static or falling real incomes.
The deal to broadcast live games in the English Premier League (EPL) for the three seasons from 2007-10 was 65% higher than the agreement that ran from 2004-07. The recession did appear to slow growth down as the contract covering the seasons 2010-13 was only 5% higher than the previous one. However the total size of this deal was still a staggering £1.78billion or approximately £593 million per season. BSkyB was the most successful bidder in all of these auctions for live TV rights and successfully saw off competition from ITV Digital, ESPN and Setanta.
However in the last few years, BT Sport has entered the bidding process and has provided BSkyB with much stronger competition than its previous rivals. As a result, BskyB had to pay £2.3 billion in order to outbid BT Sport in the most recent auction. 
The three-year deal beginning in the 2013-14 season gives BSkyB the rights to show 116 lives matches each year. BT Sport also paid £738 million for the rights to show 38 live matches a season. In total this means that the EPL earns approximately £1billion per season from the sale of broadcasting rights in the domestic market – an increase of 70%!
The Champions and Europa League also auction the rights to broadcast live matches and there was a real shock when BT Sport recently announced that it had secured the exclusive rights to show all 350 live games in these competitions. Once again the figure it paid – just under £900 million for a three-year deal – took most people by surprise. It represented a 125% increase on the previous three-year deal with BSkyB and ITV. What was also surprising was that there was only one round in the sealed bid auction which suggests that BT Sport’s offer was well in excess of the one submitted by BSkyB.
Most of the initial reaction to this new deal has focused on its implications for the number of matches that will be available free to air: i.e. without having to pay for a subscription channel. The BT Sport contract does specify that the Champions League final and at least one match involving each British team will be shown free to air each season. However, this will be a significant reduction in the number of free to air games currently shown by ITV.
The new deal may also have implications for competitive balance in the EPL. This concept was discussed in a previous blog on this New Site Parachute payment problems for the English Football League and refers to how equally the most talented players are distributed amongst the teams in a league. This distribution will be heavily influenced by the degree to which the revenues of the teams in the league vary. Commenting on this latest contract Liverpool’s former managing director Christian Purslow stated that:
The fundamental effect of the BT deal will be additional wealth for England’s big teams. You will now have six teams (Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs) playing for four Champions league places with the other 14 teams playing for survival. Never again will the likes of Everton, Newcastle or Villa get near the top – the difference in revenues will simply be too great.
To understand this statement one has to examine how the Champions League distributes the revenue it raises back to the teams that participate in the tournament. One part of the distribution mechanism is determined by the sporting performance of the teams in the competition.
For example all 32 teams that make it to the group stages of the Champions League receive a minimum of €8.6 million. Each win in the group games earns a team an additional €1 million while a draw earns €500,000. The teams that make it to the last 16 receive an additional payment of €3.5 million, the quarter finalists earn an additional €3.9 million while the semi-finalists each receive €4.9 million. For example in the 2012-13 season, Manchester United received prize money of €16.1 million for reaching the last 16, whereas Bayern Munich received €35.9 million of prize money for winning the competition. If broadcasting revenues for the Champions League increase across the whole of Europe then the size of the prizes will almost certainly increase.
Teams also receive a share of the broadcasting revenue generated by the Champions League known as the market pool. The total size of the market pool allocated to the teams in any particular country depends on the value of the deal between the broadcasters in that country and UEFA. In the 2012-13 season the total market pool to be divided between the four English teams in the Champions League was €86.6 million. This was the second highest figure behind Italy. In contrast the four Portuguese teams had just over €7 million from the market pool to share between them because the value of the broadcasting deal in that country was so much lower. The market pool is split between the clubs based on (a) their finishing position in the domestic league the previous season and (b) how many games they played in the Champions League from the group stage onwards. FC BATE Borisov were the only representative from Belarus so did not have to share the market pool with any other team. Unfortunately for them the size of the market pool was only €290,000. Manchester United received a market pool payment of €19.45 million.
Given the dramatic increase in value of the broadcasting rights the size of the market pool for the English teams will rise significantly in 2015-16 season. The battle in the 2014-15 EPL season for the four Champions League places will be even stronger and more intense than ever. As a result, the competition for the services of the most talented players will probably push up their wages to ever higher levels.
Monopoly money: Football’s TV war makes the rich unreachable’ BBC Sport (17/11/13)
Champions League TV deal in focus BBC Business (11/11/13)
Champions League: BT Sport wins £897 football rights deal BBC Sport (9/11/13)
Top Soccer Leagues Get 25% Rise in TV Rights Sales, Report Says Bloomberg (11/11/13)
BSkyB could face Premier League premium The Guardian (11/11/13)
Clubs benefit from Champions League revenue UEFA (23/7/13)
Sky pleaded with football officials to reopen champions league talks The Telegraph (11/11/13).
Questions
- What is a sealed bid auction? How does it compare with different types of auctions?
- Suggest some reasons why BT Sport were willing to pay so much more than BSkyB for the broadcasting rights for the Champions League.
- Do you think that the potentially higher revenues for the top clubs might actually reduce attendances at their matches? Explain your answer.
- Explain how the potentially higher future revenues for teams participating in the Champions League in 2015-16 can be discounted in order to give them a present value.
- Draw a diagram to illustrate the impact of the new broadcasting deal on the marginal revenue product of the most talented players.
- Is the labour market for the most talented players competitive or is it an oligopsony? What implications does this have their wages? How does your answer change if the labour market is a bilateral monopoly?
Did the benefits of the London Olympics outweigh the costs? The government’s UK Trade and Industry (part of the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills) has just published a report, London 2012, Delivering the economic legacy, which itemises the economic benefits of the games one year on. It claims that benefits to date are some £9.9 billion.
This compares with costs, estimated to be somewhere between £8.9 billion and £9.3 billion, although this figure does not include certain other costs, such as maintenance of the stadium. Nevertheless, according to the figures, even after just a year, it would seem that the Games had ‘made a profit’ – just.
The £9.9 billion of benefits consist of £5.9 billion of additional sales, £2.5 billion of additional inward investment and £1.5 billion of Olympic-related high value opportunities won overseas. 
Most of these can be seen as monetary external benefits: in other words, monetary benefits arising from spin-offs from the Games. The ‘internal’ monetary benefits would be largely the revenues from the ticket sales.
In a separate report for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, Report 5: Post-Games Evaluation, it has been estimated that the total net benefits (net gross value added (GVA)) from 2004 to 2020 will be between £28 billion and £41 billion.
But benefits are not confined just to internal and external monetary benefits: there are also other externalities that are non-monetary. The Culture, Media & Sport report identified a number of these non-monetary externalities. The Summary Report itemises them. They include:
• The health and social benefits of more people participating in sport
• Inspiring a generation of children and young people
• A catalyst for improved elite sporting performance in the UK
• Setting new standards for sustainability
• Improved attitudes to disability and new opportunities for disabled people to participate in society
• Greater social cohesion as communities across the UK engaged with the Games
• Increased enthusiasm for volunteering
• Accelerated physical transformation of East London
• Beneficial socio-economic change in East London
• Important lessons learned for the co-ordination and delivery of other large-scale public and public/private projects
But with any cost–benefit analysis there are important caveats in interpreting the figures. First there may be monetary and non-monetary external costs. For example, will all the effects on social attitudes be positive? Might greater competitiveness in sport generate less tolerance towards non sporty people? Might people expect disabled people to do more than they are able (see)? Second, the costs generally precede the benefits. This then raises the question of what is the appropriate discount rate to reduce future benefits to a present value.
Perhaps the most serious question is that of the quantification of benefits. It is important that only benefits that can be attributed to the Games are counted and not benefits that would have occurred anyway, even if connected to the Games. For example, it is claimed in the UK Trade & Industry report that much of the Olympic park and stadium for the Winter Olympics in Russia was “designed and built by British businesses”. But was this the direct result of the London Olympics, or would this have happened anyway?
Another example is that any inward investment by any company that attended the London Olympics is counted in the £2.5 billion of additional inward investment (part of the £9.9 billion). As the London Evening Standard article below states:
In London, it credited the Games with helping seal the deal for the £1.2 billion investment in the Royal Albert Docks by Chinese developer ABP, the £1 billion investment in Croydon by Australian shopping centre developer Westfield with UK firm Hammerson and the £700 million investment in Battersea Nine Elms by Dalian Wander Group.
It is highly likely that some or all of these would have gone ahead anyway.
Then there are the £5.9 billion of additional sales. These are by companies which engaged with the Olympics. But again, many of these sales could have taken place anyway, or may have displaced other sales.
Many cost–benefit analyses (or simply ‘benefit analyses’) concern projects where there are strong vested interests in demonstrating that a project should or should not go ahead or, in this case, have gone ahead. The more powerful the vested interests, the less likely it is that the analysis can be seen as objective.
Webcasts and Podcasts
Have Olympics and Paralympics really boosted trade? Channel 4 News, Jackie Long (19/7/13)
Economy boosted by Olympics Sky Sports News, Amy Lewis (19/7/13)
Olympic investment boost to last decade – Cable BBC News (19/7/13)
Did the UK gain from the Olympics? BBC Today Programme (19/7/13)
Articles
Government announces almost £10bn economic boost from London 2012 Specification Online (19/7/13)
Olympic Legacy Boosted Economy By £10bn, Government Insists The Huffington Post (19/7/13)
Olympics are delivering economic gold but volunteering legacy is at risk The Telegraph, Tim Ross (19/7/13)
Vince Cable: Case for HS2 still being made The Telegraph, Christopher Hope and Tim Ross (19/7/13)
Olympic legacy ‘gave London a £4bn windfall’ London Evening Standard, Nicholas Cecil and Matthew Beard (19/7/13)
London 2012 Olympics ‘have boosted UK economy by £9.9bn’ BBC News (19/7/13)
The great Olympic stimulus BBC News, Stephanie Flanders (19/7/13)
London Olympics still costing the taxpayer one year on Sky Sports (19/7/13)
Mayor missed long-term London Olympic jobs targets, says report BBC News, Tim Donovan (19/7/13)
Olympics legacy: Have the London 2012 Games helped Team GB develop a winning habit? Independent, Robin Scott-Elliot (19/7/13)
London 2012 added up to more than pounds and pence The Guardian, Zoe Williams (19/7/13)
Government Reports
London 2012 – Delivering the economic legacy UK Trade & Investment (19/7/13)
London 2012: Delivering the economic legacy UK Trade & Investment (19/7/13)
Report 5: Post-Games Evaluation: Summary Report Department for Culture, Media & Sport (July 2013)
Report 5: Post-Games Evaluation: Economy Evidence Base Department for Culture, Media & Sport (July 2013)
Questions
- Distinguish between gross and net benefits; monetary and non-monetary externalities; direct costs (or benefits) and external costs (or benefits).
- How should the discount rate be chosen for a cost–benefit analysis?
- Give some examples of monetary and non-monetary external costs of the Games.
- What are the arguments for and against including non-monetary externalities in a cost–benefit analysis?
- Why might the £9.9 billion figure for the monetary benefits of the Games up to the present time be questioned?
The UK government has just given the go-ahead for the building of two new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The contract to build and run the power station will go to EDF, the French energy company.
The power station is estimated to cost some £14 billion to build. It would produce around 7% of the UK’s electricity. Currently the 16 nuclear reactors in the UK produce around 19%. But all except for Sizewell B in Suffolk are due to close by 2023, although the lives of some could be extended. There is thus a considerable energy gap to fill in the coming years.
Several new nuclear power stations were being considered to help fill this gap, but with rising capital costs, especially following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, potential investors pulled out of other negotiations. Hinkley Point is the only proposal left. It’s not surprising that the government wants it to go ahead.
All that remains to agree is the price that EDF can charge for the electricity generated from the power station. This price, known as the ‘strike price’, is a government-guaranteed price over the long term. EDF is seeking a 40-year deal. Some low carbon power stations, such as nuclear and offshore wind and wave power stations, have high capital costs. The idea of the strike price is to reduce the risks of the investment and make it easier for energy companies to estimate the likely return on capital.
But the strike price, which will probably be agreed at around £95 per megawatt hour (MWh), is roughly double the current wholesale price of electricity. EDF want a price of around £100 per MWh, which is estimated to give a return on capital of around 10%. The government was hoping to agree on a price nearer to £80 per MWh. Either way, this will require a huge future subsidy on the electricity generated from the plant.
There are several questions being asked about the deal. Is the strike price worth paying? Are all the costs and benefits properly accounted for, including environmental costs and benefits and safety issues? Being an extremely long-term project, are uncertainties over costs, performance of the plant, future market prices for electricity and the costs of alternative forms of power generation sufficiently accounted for? Will the strike price contravene EU competition law? Is the timescale for construction realistic and what would be the consequences of delays? The articles consider these questions and raise a number of issues in planning very long-term capital projects.
Articles
Hinkley Point: Britain’s second nuclear age given green light as planning permission is approved for first of new generation atomic power stations Independent, Michael McCarthy (19/3/13)
Will they or won’t they? New nuclear hangs in the balance ITV News, Laura Kuenssberg (19/3/13)
Hinkley Point C: deal or no deal for UK nuclear? The Telegraph, Alistair Osborne (19/3/13)
New nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C is approved BBC News (20/3/13)
Britain’s Plans for New Nuclear Plant Approach a Decisive Point, 4 Years Late New York Times, Stanley Reed and Stephen Castle (15/3/13)
Nuclear power plans threatened by European commission investigation The Guardian (14/3/13)
New Hinkley Point nuclear power plant approved by UK government Wired, Ian Steadman (19/3/13)
Renewable energy providers to help bear cost of new UK nuclear reactors The Guardian, Damian Carrington (27/3/13)
Europe backs Hinkley nuclear plant BBC News (8/10/14)
Information/Reports/Journal Articles
Environmental permitting of Hinkley Point C Environment Agency
NNB Generation Company Limited, Radioactive Substances Regulations, Environmental Permit Application for Hinkley Point C: Chapter 7, Demonstration of Environmental Optimisation EDF
Greenhouse Gas Emission of European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) Nuclear Power Plant Technology: A Life Cycle Approach Journal of Sustainable Energy & Environment 2, J. Kunakemakorn, P. Wongsuchoto, P. Pavasant, N. Laosiripojana (2011)
Questions
- Compare the relative benefits of a construction subsidy and a subsidised high strike price from the perspectives of (a) the government (b) EDF.
- What positive and negative externalities are involved in nuclear power generation?
- What difficulties are there in valuing these externalities?
- What is meant by catastrophic risk? Why is this difficult to take account of in any cost–benefit analysis?
- What is meant by a project’s return on capital? Explain how discounted cash flow techniques are used to estimate this return.
- What should be taken into account in deciding the rate of discount to use?
- How should the extra jobs during construction of the plant and then in the running of the plant be valued when making the decisions about whether to go ahead?
My son Andrew Sloman (see also) is currently in Goa. My wife Alison and I went to visit him over half term – our first trip to India. Goa is a beautiful state, with wonderful beaches, fantastic food and perfect weather in February. But inland from this tourist haven lies an environmental disaster caused by the open-cast extraction of iron ore.
This tiny state by Indian standards produces more than 60% of India’s iron ore exports. Whilst, along with tourism, the iron ore industry has been one of the largest contributors to the Goan economy, its environmental footprint is massive. Deforestation and water and air pollution are just three of the environmental externalities.
So should a cap be placed on the amount of iron ore that is mined? Should the industry be taxed more heavily? Should tough environmental standards be imposed on the industry? Or should it simply be allowed to continue, given its large contribution to the Goan economy? Or, at the other extreme, should the industry be closed? The linked article looks at some of the issues. Try to identify, as an economist, what information you would require in order to come to a conclusion to these questions.
Greens’ shout for cap on iron ore mining falls on deaf ears Times of India, Paul Fernandes (28/2/12)
Questions
- What negative externalities are involved with the Goan iron ore industry? Are there any positive externalities?
- What difficulties are there in measuring the negative externalities?
- How would you set about doing a cost–benefit analysis of (a) expanding the Goan iron ore industry; (b) shutting it?
- Explain the following: “The net present value of the opportunity cost for 25 years at 12% social discount rate of giving it up is greater than its environmental cost by Rs 14,449 crore, the report states.” (A crore is 10 million and Rs is the symbol for an Indian Rupee, where £1 = approximately 78 rupees.)
- What difficulties are there in attempting to take distribution into account when doing a cost–benefit analysis?
On June 20, the Review of the Government’s case for a High Speed Rail programme was published. This was commissioned by the Transport Select Committee from the independent consultancy, Oxera.
The programme is initially for a high-speed rail link form London to Birmingham and then subsequently for two additonal routes from Birmingham to Manchester and from Birmingham to Leeds. The whole thing is known as the ‘HS2 Y programme’
Oxera’s brief was to ‘provide an independent review of the economic case for the programme and to provide a set of questions that the Committee could use to probe the evidence base put forward by witnesses during its inquiry.’ In considering the economic case, Oxera focused on the economic, social and environment impacts, both monetary and non-monetary.
The summary to the report states that:
Overall, the case for the High Speed Rail programme seems to depend on whether and when the capacity is needed, the selection of the best VfM [value-for-money] approach to delivering that capacity, the degree of uncertainty around the monetised benefits and costs of the preferred options, and judgements on the balance of evidence relating to non-monetised items, such as environment and regeneration impacts (which are likely to be substantive in their own right but not fully set out in the Government’s assessment).
On July 19, the Institute for Economic Affairs, the pro-free-market think-tank, published a highly critical disussion paper, challenging the case for HS2. The paper, High Speed 2: the next government project disaster? arges that:
There is a significant risk that High Speed 2 (HS2) will become the latest in a long series of government big-project disasters with higher-than-forecast costs and lower-than-forecast benefits. HS2 is not commercially viable and will require substantial and increasing levels of subsidy. Taxpayers will therefore bear a very high proportion of the financial risks, which are wholly under-represented in the Economic Case presented by the Department for Transport.
The publication of the report and the IEA discussion paper has fueled the debate between supporters and opponents of HS2, as the articles below demonstrate.
Update
In November 2011, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee came out in favour of the government’s HS2 plans. According to the committee’s chair, Louise Ellman:
A high speed rail network, beginning with a line between London and the West Midlands, would provide a step change in the capacity, quality, reliability and frequency of rail services between our major cities.
A high speed line offers potential economic and strategic benefits which a conventional line does not, including a dramatic improvement in connectivity between our major cities, Heathrow and other airports, and the rest of Europe.
However, she did raise some issues that would need addressing concerning the overall level of investment in the rail network and the encironmental impact of HS2.
Investment in HS2 must not lead to reduced investment in the ‘classic’ rail network. We are concerned that the Government is developing separate strategies for rail and aviation, with HS2 separate from both. We call again for the publication of a comprehensive transport strategy.
Investment in high speed rail has potential to boost growth but may have a substantial negative impact on the countryside, communities and people along the route. This must be better reflected in the business case for HS2 and future phases of the project. We would encourage the Government to follow existing transport corridors wherever possible.
Further update
In January 2012, the government approved HS2. The Transport Secretary, Justine Greening, said:
I have decided Britain should embark upon the most significant transport infrastructure project since the building of the motorways by supporting the development and delivery of a new national high speed rail network.
The ‘articles for further update’ below give reactions to the announcement.
Articles
Is the UK’s high speed rail project a waste of money? BBC News, Rory Cellan-Jones (21/7/11)
On a collision path The Economist blogs, Blighty (21/7/11)
High speed rail dismissed as ‘vanity project’ by right-wing think tank The Telegraph, David Millward (19/7/11)
HS2 high-speed rail plans ‘a recipe for disaster’ Guardian, Dan Milmo (19/7/11)
High speed rail report shows ‘uncertainty’ over benefits Rail.co, A. Samuel (21/7/11)
Our high speed rail future BBC News, Rory Cellan-Jones (21/7/11)
Anger as high-speed rail link to London branded ‘vanity project’ Yorkshire Post (20/7/11)
Articles for update
MPs support plans for a high speed rail network BBC News, Richard Lister (8/11/11)
High-speed rail project will boost economy, say MPs Guardian, Dan Milmo (8/11/11)
High speed rail report ‘raises questions’ say opponents BBC News (8/11/11)
MPs back controversial high-speed rail link Yahoo News, Sebastien Bozon (8/11/11)
HS2 project: ‘Wrong to castigate locals’ BBC Today Programme (8/11/11)
Articles for further update
HS2 go-ahead sees mixed reaction BBC News (10/1/12)
HS2 – What’s in it for you? Channel 4 News (10/1/12)
Ready to depart: But will the HS2 express be derailed before it arrives? Independent, Nigel Morris (11/1/12)
HS2 go-ahead sees mixed reaction BBC News (10/1/12)
HS2 go-ahead sees mixed reaction BBC News (10/1/12)
Reports and discussion paper
Review of the Government’s case for a High Speed Rail programme Oxera Publishing (20/6/11)
High Speed 2: the next government project disaster? IEA Discussion Paper No. 36 (19/7/11)
Good case for high speed rail to run to Birmingham and beyond, say MPs House of Commons Transport Select Committee News (8/11/11)
Transport Committee – Tenth Report: High Speed Rail House of Commons Transport Select Committee (8/11/11)
Questions
- Itemise (a) the monetary costs and benefits and (b) the non-monetary costs and benefits of HS2 that were identified by Oxera. Try to identify other costs and benefits that were not included by Oxera.
- Why are the costs and benefits subject to great uncertainty?
- How should this uncertainty be taken into account by decision-makers?
- Explain the process of discounting in cost–benefit analysis. How should the rate of discount be chosen?
- What are the main criticisms of the report made by the IEA discussion paper?
- Assess these criticisms.
The enormous amounts of money broadcasters are willing to pay for the rights to show live football astonish most people. The figures have continued to rise despite the impact of a recession, slow economic growth and static or falling real incomes.
For example all 32 teams that make it to the group stages of the Champions League receive a minimum of €8.6 million. Each win in the group games earns a team an additional €1 million while a draw earns €500,000. The teams that make it to the last 16 receive an additional payment of €3.5 million, the quarter finalists earn an additional €3.9 million while the semi-finalists each receive €4.9 million. For example in the 2012-13 season, Manchester United received prize money of €16.1 million for reaching the last 16, whereas Bayern Munich received €35.9 million of prize money for winning the competition. If broadcasting revenues for the Champions League increase across the whole of Europe then the size of the prizes will almost certainly increase.
