Croydon (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Croydon pub landlords face annual bills of up to £30,000 for Sky Sports licences to screen Premier League football, sparking concern over rising costs.
Additionally, the Builders Arms, a well-known backstreet bar on Croydon‘s Leslie Park Road, has declared that it would stop carrying Sky at the end of next month.
During a difficult period for the hospitality sector, pubs have found that football on TV is a welcome and tested source of income. With “at least” 215 live games slated for broadcast in the just begun 2025–2026 season, Sky Sports, which has the majority of the rights to Premier League games, plans to show 100 more matches than in the past.
However, Sky is putting increasing pressure on publicans to provide them the right to broadcast the games on their televisions in order to help them pay for that.
The cost of a Sky Sports football pub varies greatly, but commercial bundles can start with about £200 every month. The venue’s size, location, and commercial category all affect the fees. As a typical divide and conquer tactic, Sky keeps its pub prices a secret, allowing publicans to haggle over individual charges.
The cost of some pubs’ annual package has doubled this year, reaching over £30,000.
Any additional rights payments paid to other broadcasters, including TNT Sports, are on top of this.
Pubs would reportedly need to sell an additional 2,000 pints per month in order to cover Sky’s higher football fee. In order to cover their “increased investment” in airing additional matches, the broadcasters have defended their fee increase.
One pub pundit has warned that soon only the larger chains will be able to offer the chance to watch the game with a few mates and a couple of pints down the pub:
“Any independent pub is getting priced out of the market by Sky’s prices,”
they said.
The charge hike could also see an increase in pirate streaming of games by some pubs: a publican in Wales was convicted of showing unlicensed Sky football coverage last year and fined £3,000 – one-tenth of the annual Sky fee.
One publican, who has seen his Sky bill soar by 129%, from £1,062 to £2,433, said he would not be renewing when his contract runs out:
“That’s a ridiculous amount,”
they said.
“On top of all the other rising costs like utilities and wages, it’s just not viable to pay a further £35,000 for the year for Sky Sports, when you include the VAT.”
One Croydon pub, the Builders Arms in Addiscombe, has recoiled in horror at the eye-wateringly high new bills from the satellite broadcaster.
In a message shared with their regulars this week, they said:
“Unfortunately, from the end of September we will no longer be showing Sky. They want to charge us £30,000 per annum, making it no longer affordable for this small business.
However, we will still be able to show any games broadcast on TNT. This includes most football cup competitions and 54 Premier League games. We are sorry for the inconvenience but we hope you can understand our situation.”
Not every boozer will stop playing satellite sports. The same pubco owns the Spread Eagle on Katharine Street and Whelans, a large sports bar in South Croydon, both of which are dominated by multiple widescreen TVs that broadcast sports all day and all night. Neither pub intends to quit using their televisions to broadcast Sky Football.
The Hope in Carshalton, which just won London’s Pub of the Year for the ninth time in 13 years, may be a good example for those Croydon establishments weighing their options. There are no televisions in the bars, and no football games are shown.
Additionally, their budgets have improved by £30,000 as a result.
How is the £30,000 licence fee to show Sky Sports calculated per pub?
The £30,000 lodge fee for pubs to show Sky Sports is based mainly on the pub’s triggerable value (RV) calculated by the Government’s Valuation Office Agency.
Sky erects individual leases in order to arrive at a /individual fee, where rates range from about £200/month for the smaller venues to exorbitant amounts for the bigger or central locations. Additionally, they have these fees to pay the right fee if showing content from other broadcasters such as TNT Sports.
The recent fee increases are closely linked to the recent Premier League TV rights deal, where the broadcasters explained to publicans that the fee rises were due to the increase in funding they had to show more matches.