Football: Kiwi 'biggest threat' to Premier League

Kiwi businessman Tom Mockridge is the chief executive of Virgin Media. Photo / Getty

A Kiwi businessman has been dubbed the "biggest threat the Premier League has faced" after proposing to revolutionise the competition's television deal.

Tom Mockridge, who began his career in New Zealand as a journalist and is now the chief executive of Virgin Media, has suggested the current structure of the Premier League's television deal is unfair for many football fans.

The 60-year-old believes supporters in the United Kingdom are paying twice as much to watch top-flight games than their European counterparts, asking British communications regulator Ofcom to investigate the issue.

"Fans are paying too much for pay TV football," Mockridge told the BBC. "At the moment only 40 per cent of Premier League games are available on national TV in England and some clubs are only on six times a season if they're lucky. That's just not fair.

"Ofcom should look at whether they're keeping too many games from television. If you hold something back the price goes up, maybe too quickly. This is a very, very big decision not just for football, but for the UK."

The Premier League's last TV deal, agreed earlier in the year, saw Sky and BT Sport pay a record £5.1 billion ($11.4b) for three seasons from 2016-17. But under the agreement only 168 of the league's 380 matches are available to live television, keeping demand well above supply and seeing the deal worth 71 per cent more than the previous.

Mockridge wants that to change and the views of the Virgin Media boss have seen the BBC call him the "biggest threat the Premier League has faced" in the near 25-year history of the competition. He believes that limiting the number of matches available makes them artificially expensive and offering more games with more choice would see prices come down for the consumer.

"If you go across Europe almost every football game in the major leagues is available on television, the same in the States with NFL, MLB and the NBA," Mockridge said. "The system should be fair, and the consumer should be represented. I would say any objective observer would look at this and say football's become so expensive, consumers are no longer benefiting."

Mockridge did acknowledge there was an element of self-interest in his argument, with Virgin Media unsatisfied forced to pay more to Sky and BT to show matches on their own platforms. But in his view the current arrangement in contrary to competition law and should be amended.

"The Premier League shouldn't be able to say it's exempt from normal competition law. It should be treated like a big business."