Sporting announced that it would be selling these television rights alongside the in-stadium advertising to NOS for a 10-year period as from the 2018/19 season alongside a 12-year deal for the operation and distribution of Sporting TV station for 12 years and a 12 and a half year deal for sponsoring its club shirt, with the latter kicking in as from this January, all for a total of 446 million euros.
This comes two days after FC Porto said it had reached a deal with Altice/PT Portugal – that provides cable and other telecommunications services under the MEO brand – for a total value of €457.5 million with the timeframe and the respective coverage of the sponsorship deal equal to that of its Lisbon rival.
In comparison its other Lisbon rival, Benfica, has agreed a deal with NOS, for 400 million euros. This will span home matches for the next decade and specifies that the total paid breaks down to 75 percent for broadcasting its matches and 25 percent for rights to the channel, excluding facets such as shirt and stadium sponsorship.
Contacted by Lusa News Agency, a source at Benfica described the club as “comfortable” as its contract was more minimalist in terms of its coverage.
For example, Benfica retains the rights to its club shirt with that deal remaining in effect with Fly Emirates with a three-year deal through to the end of the 2017/18 for an unrevealed sum of money.
The Benfica source added that as the club had emphasised when announcing its deal with NOS, “this would establish a new frame of reference for negotiation by all clubs, benefitting all of Portuguese football” and that the subsequent deals demonstrated its position that television rights had hitherto been undervalued in the Portuguese market.
Indeed, whilst FC Porto and Sporting are retaining their television broadcast rights with PPTV, part of the Controlinveste group, the latter club did state that it would now be receiving 69 million euros per year for these rights compared with a deal that had formerly provided for 108 million over the entire 2013/14 to 2017/18 period.
Coinciding with these deals was the announcement that television station SIC, part of the Impresa group, and MEO had reached agreement to carry six of the former’s television channels.
MEO, which reaches approximately 40 percent of Portugal’s ten million population, will now carry all six SIC channels, including a generalist channel along with others specialising in news, radical sports, women, fashion and society.