While a lot was made of the fact that Arsenal were among the top seeds for the Champions League group stage draw, Benfica’s appearance among the Top 8 sides alongside domestic rivals FC Porto - at least according to UEFA’s co-efficient system - should have drawn far more attention than it did.
And that’s not a criticism of the club. Quite the opposite. It’s great to see a historic club like Benfica having its name in lights again even if it is in an artificial manner. But the Lisbon giants have done well in Europe over recent seasons. On two occasions they have been foiled by very lucky Chelsea teams.
In last season’s Europa League final, Benfica should have been out of sight before the Blues hit back late on, while the Eagles gave Chelsea a good game over two legs in the 2012 Champions League quarter-finals.
But there’s a more pressing reason why I wish to discuss the 32-time Portuguese league champions and double European Cup champions.
Back in July, Benfica made a pioneering decision. They became the first ever European club to exclusively screen their own league matches.
The club hailed their decision, claiming that they were the first club to “fully exploit their TV rights”.
So how does it work? Well a little background first.
As most of us know, the Premier League’s recently signed TV rights deal worth a shade over £3 billion with that money divided in a relatively equitable manner between top flight clubs (the increase probably helped fuel a record breaking transfer window).
But unlike the EPL and Serie A, the Portuguese league follows the rather unfair Spanish model. In the Iberian peninsula clubs negotiate their TV rights on an individual basis rather than the collective bargaining agreements seen in some other leagues.
In Spain that means Barcelona and Real Madrid are out of sight of every other club when it comes to receipts from TV revenue.
Breaking away
The same is true of Portugal, where the Big Three of Benfica, FC Porto and Sporting Lisbon receive about 70 per cent of the €75 million TV revenue available to the domestic league, with the rest divided between the smaller clubs.
But Benfica have broken away for this and will now screen all their home league games on their premium cable channel Benfica TV. They have also acquired the rights to broadcast English Premier League matches on Portuguese territory for three seasons. Benfica TV is also available in former colonies like Mozambique, Brazil and Angola as well as France and Italy. The club also launched a second channel, Benfica TV2.
Within 18 days of announcing the decision in July, Benfica TV had already attracted 80,000 subscribers who pay €9.90 per month each in order to be able to see games.
By the end of August, this figure had doubled, with the number of subscribers passing the 150,000 mark. A rough calculation shows that 150,000 subscribers would be worth roughly €18 million per annum to the club, which is not too dissimilar to the TV revenue they received under the previous agreement with Sport TV.
On paper it sounds like a clever move and one with the potential for untold riches for a club which is estimated to have a fanbase of 6 million in Portugal alone and 14 million globally. But one must remember that Portugal is currently experiencing unwelcome austerity measures just like Ireland. With restricted incomes and joblessness, and the fact that not every household has access to cable, it will be interesting whether the experiment has scope for expansion.
It is almost certain that the elite clubs in Europe will be looking on with interest to see how Benfica fare although the English clubs some of whom have subscription channels (Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Everton) are likely to stick with the very lucrative Sky deal.
It’s more so clubs of Benfica’s current standing in countries where TV deals are negotiated on a club-by-club basis who may look to “exploit” their TV rights. For example, when I lived in Seville, Sevilla FC had its own TV channel which if I remember well, showed the odd youth team game.
But it it'll be worth keeping an eye on Benfica over the next few seasons to see how they fare.
