The Premier League has reportedly rejected a £15million proposal by Netflix to make a documentary about the 20 top-flight clubs. Netflix were keen to follow Premier League clubs to create a documentary in the style of Drive To Survive, a series that has helped catapult F1 to a whole new audience.
According to The Telegraph, the 20 Premier League clubs took the decision to reject the proposal during a shareholders meeting in London on Thursday after Netflix had originally touted their idea last September.
Sky Sports, who have held rights to broadcast Premier League football since the league’s inception in 1992, opposed the concept as their US owners Comcast would have been keen to have a chance to bid on putting together such a show.
Netflix has never bid for rights to show live Premier League football as part of either a domestic or overseas package. But their Drive To Survive documentary has been credited with bringing a new generation of fans to F1. Sky, however, maintain that their live coverage of Grands Prix has been the defining factor in growing the F1 fanbase.
Current Premier League broadcasters, who include BT Sport, Amazon Prime and the BBC, have come to expect much more from clubs when it comes to access to players and behind-the-scenes content. And the clubs ultimately decided during Thursday’s meeting that no broadcaster would produce a behind-the-scenes documentary series at this time, despite Netflix tabling a three-year offer worth around £5m per season.
The Premier League announced a three-year renewal of its deal with broadcasters in May 2021. That arrangement sees Sky Sports and BT Sport paying in the region of £5.1billion to screen live matches as part of packages sold by the Premier League. A further package of matches was also sold to Amazon Prime at the same time.
The Premier League is followed closely around the world, with some of the best players on the planet plying their trade in England. Manchester United have won the title a record 13 times but they haven’t managed to get their hands on the trophy since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as the club’s manager in 2013.
Manchester City have dominated in recent years and have won the title six times since the Premier League began, with four of those coming in the last five seasons. But Arsenal are in pole position to get their hands on the trophy for the first time since 2004 this term as they are currently eight points clear at the top of the table.