The reported decrease comes just before the start of a new domestic rights cycle for the top English soccer league

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Domestic viewing numbers for the Premier League dropped in 2024-25, according to a report in The Times.

According to the report, the 20 Premier League clubs were informed at their annual meeting last week that viewing numbers for the competition on Sky Sports were down by 10% last season, and that numbers for TNT Sports were down by 5% from 2023-24.

Specifically, it has been reported that viewing figures noticeably dropped off during the last six weeks of the 2024-25 campaign, by which point the destination of the Premier League title (won by Liverpool) was all but decided.

The identity of the three clubs relegated to the second-tier Championship – Ipswich Town, Leicester City, and Southampton – was also more or less known by that point.

In addition to the title and relegation battles being over before the season entered its final month, it is also likely that the growing trend of soccer fans in the UK watching live games illegally – via illegal streaming sites and in some cases, Amazon fire sticks – has had an impact on broadcast viewing numbers.

In February, Sky Sports’ chief operating officer suggested these were to blame for around 50% of illegal Premier League streaming incidents.

These statistics have been reported with the Premier League and its domestic broadcast partners set to enter a new rights cycle next year.

Sky and TNT will split live rights between them for the 2025-26 to 2028-29 cycle. 

Next season, at least 215 Premier League games will be shown on Sky, up from 128 currently, while 52 will stay on TNT Sports. The Amazon Prime Video service, which has been covering live action since 2019, will not be airing matches during the next cycle.

The next rights period is the first one to be spread out over four years, instead of three, and in total (including the BBC element, a highlights rights package) is worth £6.7 billion (US$9.06 billion).

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Premier League viewing figures for the league’s US rights-holder, NBCUniversal, also dropped in 2024-25.

NBC, which holds English and Spanish-language Premier League rights in the US through 2027-28 in a deal covering all 380 games per season, averaged 510,000 viewers for games last season, which concluded on 25 May.

This figure is down by 7% year-on-year from the average viewing number secured in 2023-24.

However, despite the slight drop, 2024-25 still marked the fourth consecutive season in which NBC’s Premier League English-language average viewing figure was above 500,000 per game, marking a league record in the US.

The current NBC deal with the Premier League began with the 2022-23 campaign and is worth $2.69 billion in total over the six seasons.

This story first appeared in Broadcast Sport’s sister publication Sportcal.