Uli Hoeness speculates that companies like Netflix and Disney could pour even more money into football

Sports media rights are one of the main sources of economic input for most elite football teams. Sky Sports and BT agreed to pay £4.46 billion pounds to show 160 Premier League games a season from 2019/20 until 2021/22. That makes the price per game, on average, £9.3 million.

This gives the Premier League clubs a huge economic advantage over other European clubs. In an interview with the business newspaper Euro am Sonntag (via TZ), Uli Hoeness touched upon the issue and how it might change in the future. He addressed how the marketing period of television rights in 2021 could introduce even more money to the clubs if global media companies got involved.

The President of Bayern Munich stated:

Perhaps someday Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Disney, Google, or Netflix will join in, too. Those are all companies that provide content for their users. When they discover football for themselves, then we’ll be talking about totally different amounts. There, half a billion, a billion is nothing. Then we might reach dimensions that we cannot even imagine yet today.

Continuing speaking about economics, Hoeness also commented on the modern-day transfer system, and how it has changed drastically over the years:

If you had asked me three years ago whether Bayern would ever spend 100 million euros on a player, I would have said no. And now we have thought it over.

Most likely, the referring player is Manchester City winger Leroy Sané, although Hoeness refused to comment whether Bayern is still interested in the German international.

Lastly, Hoeness commented on the decline of some traditional German football clubs. The Bayern honcho sees their struggles as a negative situation for the Bundesliga, since these historical teams would otherwise only increase the popularity and attractiveness of the league.