Euro Super League would ‘undo the value’ of EPL and UCL, says BT Sport boss Green

A breakaway European Super League would be less valuable to broadcasters than the current model of domestic and continental football competitions, the boss of BT Sport has said.

Speaking at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit, BT Sport head Simon Green said that while a European Super League – the long-threatened breakaway competition which would put a handful of top teams from each European country in their own league – would be “extremely appealing to broadcasters” it “would be undoing the value that already exists and reinventing something that is worth less.”

He added that the prospect “wouldn’t be appealing to consumers” who, he argued, enjoy the division between the Premier League and the Champions League. 

BT Sport is the sole broadcaster of the Champions League in the UK, and holds a secondary package of rights to the Premier League. 

Simon Green

Green also commented on the state of sports rights, particularly in light of the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The exec predicted that “there’s certainly going to be a rights correction and it may be seen and interpreted as many as rights deflation.”

He said that a climb down from the €17 billion per season generated from Europe’s big five leagues “would be a welcome change to the market” and predicted that broadcasters paying “an awful lot of money for rights” is less likely to happen going forward.