Premier League Plus New Streaming Platform: A £3.8bn Threat to Sky’s Monopoly?

Premier League Plus launches in Singapore next season in a six-year deal with StarHub. If it works, the world’s richest football league will have a blueprint for going direct-to-consumer globally — and its existing broadcast partners should be paying attention.

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The Premier League will launch its own direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Premier League Plus, in Singapore from the 2026–27 season. Chief executive Richard Masters confirmed the move at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit in London on 26 February, describing it as both a commercial venture and a learning exercise that could be replicated worldwide. The platform, built in partnership with Singaporean telco StarHub under a six-year agreement, will show all 380 live matches per season alongside exclusive magazine content. It marks the first time in the league’s 34-year history that it has broadcast its own content, having always previously sold rights to third-party broadcasters. The launch coincides with the opening of Premier League Studios, a new in-house production hub at Olympia in London, signalling a broader strategy to take control of the content pipeline.

Why is the Premier League launching its own streaming service?

The short answer is economics. The Premier League generates £3.84 billion per season from its combined domestic and international broadcast deals — more than La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A combined. International rights alone are now worth £2.17 billion annually, having overtaken domestic revenue for the first time in the 2022–25 cycle. But growth in the domestic market has flatlined. The current UK deal of £1.67 billion per season is actually below the 2016–19 peak of £1.72 billion.

That creates a strategic problem. The Premier League’s future revenue growth depends almost entirely on international markets — and in many of those markets, the league is selling through intermediaries who capture a significant share of the value. Going direct-to-consumer allows the league to own the customer relationship, control pricing, capture subscriber data and retain margins that currently flow to third-party broadcasters. As we explored in our analysis of why capital allocation is shifting across global markets, the move from wholesale distribution to direct ownership of revenue streams is one of the defining business trends of 2026.

Why Singapore first?

Singapore is a carefully chosen test market. It is small enough to manage operationally but sophisticated enough to generate meaningful data on consumer behaviour, pricing sensitivity and churn. The city-state has high smartphone penetration, strong broadband infrastructure and an established appetite for English football. The partnership with StarHub, one of Singapore’s two major telecoms providers, gives the league an immediate distribution channel without the cost of building one from scratch.

Masters was explicit about the experimental nature of the venture. The league will use Singapore to learn how to manage promotions, pricing, subscriber retention and content distribution — capabilities it has never needed before. If the model works, it becomes a template that can be adapted for larger and more complex international markets. If it doesn’t, the financial exposure is contained.

The six-year deal length is significant. It gives the league enough time to iterate, invest in the product and build a subscriber base — rather than treating the platform as a short-term experiment that could be abandoned after a single cycle.

What does this mean for Sky, TNT and NBC?

The Premier League’s existing broadcast partners should not panic yet — but they should be planning. Singapore is a single territory and the league has been careful to frame Premier League Plus as a learning exercise rather than a declaration of war on its incumbent partners. The current UK domestic deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports runs until 2029. The US deal with NBC runs on a separate cycle. None of these agreements are immediately threatened.

But the direction of travel is unmistakable. The Premier League has taken its production capability in-house by building Premier League Studios at Olympia. It has created a branded consumer product. It has hired people who understand subscription economics. Every one of these steps reduces its dependence on third-party distributors. As we reported in our coverage of how strategic partnerships are reshaping major industries, the shift from licensing to ownership is a pattern repeating across media, finance and technology.

The NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball have all moved toward direct-to-consumer streaming in recent years. The Premier League is the last major global sports property to follow suit — and it has the advantage of watching what worked and what didn’t before committing its own capital.

What should European business leaders watch?

The Premier League claims a global audience of 1.87 billion people across 189 countries. If Premier League Plus scales beyond Singapore, it would become one of the largest sports streaming platforms on earth overnight — competing not just with ESPN+, DAZN and Peacock but with the broader attention economy that includes Netflix, YouTube and TikTok.

For European media companies, the implications are considerable. The Premier League’s international rights currently generate three times the revenue of La Liga’s overseas deals. A successful direct-to-consumer model could widen that gap further, concentrating even more economic power in English football at the expense of continental European leagues. For investors in European broadcast infrastructure — from Sky parent Comcast to Canal+ and DAZN — the question is whether the league’s most valuable rights will still be available to bid on when the current cycles expire, or whether the Premier League will keep them for itself.

A football league that generates nearly £4 billion a year in broadcast revenue has just signalled it wants to become its own broadcaster. Whether Singapore proves the concept or exposes its limitations, the experiment has begun — and the rest of the sports media industry is watching.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Premier League Plus and when does it launch?

Premier League Plus is the Premier League’s first direct-to-consumer streaming platform, launching in Singapore from the 2026–27 season. Built in partnership with Singaporean telecoms provider StarHub under a six-year agreement, it will show all 380 live Premier League matches per season alongside exclusive magazine content and will be available via a dedicated app. The platform was announced by chief executive Richard Masters at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit on 26 February 2026.

Will Premier League Plus be available in the UK?

Not immediately. The Premier League’s current UK domestic broadcasting deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports runs until 2029 and is worth £6.7 billion over four years. Premier League Plus is launching exclusively in Singapore as a pilot project designed to test direct-to-consumer operations including pricing, subscriber retention and content distribution. If successful, the model could be replicated in other international markets, but there is no confirmed timeline for UK availability.

How much does the Premier League earn from broadcasting rights?

The Premier League generates approximately £3.84 billion per season from combined domestic and international broadcast deals, making it the most valuable football broadcasting property in the world. Domestic rights are worth £1.67 billion annually under the current Sky Sports and TNT Sports deal running from 2025 to 2029. International rights are worth £2.17 billion annually and have overtaken domestic revenue for the first time, growing 23 per cent from the previous cycle. The league’s total broadcast revenue exceeds that of La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A combined.