The Premier League's £2bn-plus auction of live UK television rights has gone to a second round with sources indicating a new bidder, thought to be al-Jazeera, has entered the fray against incumbents BSkyB and ESPN.
Bids for the second round of the auction for UK TV and digital rights to 154 Premier League games a season for three years from August 2013 are due in at lunchtime on Wednesday, with a good chance that the winners will be announced later the same day.
That the auction process has gone to a second round of bidding is not unusual – this also occurred in the last rights auction in 2009.
In that case BSkyB secured the four main rights packages unchallenged in the first round of bidding and this was announced by the Premier League. The second round was for the two smaller packages, with Sky and Setanta securing one each.
The fact that BSkyB has been required to submit another bid in the new auction, with no news from the Premier League that there was a clear winner of any packages in the first round, has led to speculation that a potentially serious bid from a rival has been submitted.
In the new auction the total number of live matches going under the hammer is increasing from 138 to 154 games a season, with no single broadcaster allowed to have the rights to more than 116 games.
This is understood to have pleased ESPN, which has 23 matches under the current deal, as it would allow the Disney-owned broadcaster to look at targeting the additional matches on offer to boost its live coverage to 38 games a season without getting into a bidding war with BSkyB.
With ESPN thought to be uninterested in challenging BSkyB for the lion's share of live matches, sources believe that a second round of bidding has been forced by a new player.
"The sense is there is a new bidder out there with a potentially serious offer and everyone thinks it is al-Jazeera, although no one can be 100%," said one industry source. "The question is how many packages they are targeting, meaning Sky or ESPN."
If there are clear winning bids for all the TV packages after the second round the Premier League will announce the result quite swiftly, possibly Wednesday afternoon or by Thursday at the latest, unless a third round auction is required.
Nasser al-Khelaifi, director of al-Jazeera Sports, has said that the broadcaster has received the Premier League tender and is "studying whether there is room for another sports channel" in the UK.
The Qatar-based broadcaster is known to have done significant work evaluating a bid.
Al-Jazeera Sports already has a foothold in the UK, using ITV Studios to produce English-language commentary for football matches, fronted by Gary Lineker, Ruud Gullit, Alan Shearer and Terry Venables, for expats throughout the Middle East on al-Jazeera +3.
Al-Jazeera took French broadcasters by surprise last year, taking on incumbent Canal+ and snapping up live football rights including Euro 2012 and Euro 2016, Uefa Champions League football and the FA Cup. It launched a channel in France on 1 June.
The broadcaster also intends to launch two channels in the US in August, for which it has secured rights for football leagues in Spain and Italy.
US Premier League rights have been held by News Corporation's Fox Sports since 1998, with some sub-licensing to ESPN since August 2009.
Premier League rights in al-Jazeera's home market of the Middle East are held by Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, BSkyB's partner in Sky News Arabia, the rival service launched in the region in early May.
ADMIC is a private investment firm owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City football club.
In the last TV rights auction the Premier League netted about £1.4bn for overseas rights.
BSkyB, ESPN and al-Jazeera declined to comment. The Premier League had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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