Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Baroness Brady

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, in introducing this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, used the phrase “hiding behind a paywall”. I wonder whether that is really a fair description of paying for something. When I got my phone, it was hiding behind a paywall: it was not given to me free; I had to shell out for it. I need a new car at the moment; my heap of junk of a Nissan has collapsed. The new one is hiding behind a paywall, and I have to pay for it. I had to pay for my dinner tonight; it was hiding behind a paywall.

There is an assumption here that there is no such thing as private property or free contract and that everything ought to be somehow at the disposition of regulators or of state officials. That is not how we got here. If you do not respect the fundamental ability of sporting clubs or indeed broadcasters to do what they think is in their best interests, you end up with suboptimal outcomes. This is a very neat demonstration of why, once you create these regulatory structures, they expand and expand—because people airily demand things and feel very virtuous in demanding them without any thought for the practicalities of the people who have to implement them.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose Amendments 91 and 92 because they try to make the regulator a consultee on listed events and would place a duty on it to have regard to the desirability of making more domestic games free to air. I have huge respect for the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Goddard, and their colleagues, and I know that these amendments relate to a manifesto commitment made by their party, but I hope it is helpful to talk a little about how football’s broadcast economy works in practice.

The Premier League’s domestic broadcasting rights are contracted through to 2029. Of course, they represent far more than a simple commercial arrangement: they form the foundation of English football’s entire economic model, and their thoughtful and innovative packaging is a hugely important part of the Premier League’s success. The substantial revenues they generate enable the Premier League to provide £1.6 billion of support to the wider pyramid, representing 16% of central revenues, of which—I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, may like to know—£25 million goes to funding the PFA. That is why it keeps its joining fee at £20 and its subs at £150.

The sophistication and complexity of broadcasting arrangements is enormous and a huge source of competitive advantage for English football. Each broadcasting slot and each package of rights exists within an intricate ecosystem where values are fundamentally interdependent. These are not discrete assets that can be easily separated; they form a carefully balanced whole that has taken decades to develop to create value and appeal. Forcing certain matches to be free to air would not just affect those specific fixtures; it would fundamentally undermine the value proposition of every broadcasting package.

Premium broadcasters invest based on exclusive content that attracts subscribers. Remove that exclusivity—even partially—and decouple certain packages from each other and the entire model becomes unsustainable. The consequences that would cascade throughout football are significant. A significant reduction in broadcast values would not just affect Premier League clubs but immediately impact the entire pyramid through reduced solidarity payments, youth development funding and grass-roots investment. The damage to football’s economic ecosystem would be profound and potentially irreversible.

Of course, this sort of intervention would create exactly the kind of seismic instability the regulator is meant to prevent. In an attempt to increase access to certain matches, it would risk destabilising the very mechanism that funds football’s broader development and sustainability. The Premier League’s success in maintaining the growing broadcast revenues, which benefit the entire game, comes through very careful and innovative management of these arrangements. While I respect my noble friend’s motivations and good intentions here, I must strongly oppose the expansion of the scope of the IFR in the way proposed.