That most exclusive of clubs, the chairmen of the Premier League's 20 teams, sat down to dinner on Thursday night after a board meeting at the Churchill Hotel in central London, contemplating a very unsavoury problem.

That most exclusive of clubs, the chairmen of the Premier League's 20
teams, sat down to dinner on Thursday night after a board meeting at
the Churchill Hotel in central London, contemplating a very unsavoury
problem.
It was not sexism in football, but the financial foundation of the
league and their clubs' TV rights income. Nevertheless, that
foundation is under threat because of two women -- pub landlady Karen
Murphy and Juliane Kokott, advocate-general at the European Court of
Justice.
Ms Kokott on Thursday said Ms Murphy was justified in arguing she
should be allowed to show live Premier League matches in her Southsea
pub using a Greek decoder card rather than the encrypted service of
BSkyB, which owns the UK rights. BSkyB charges pubs about £10,000
($16,137) a year. But Nova had bought the Greek rights to EPL matches
at a much lower rate so Ms Murphy was charged a 10th of what she would
have had to pay the UK broadcaster.
The advocate-general's opinions are generally endorsed by the ECJ. If
that happens, the implications cannot be underestimated -- for the
league, which receives £1.8bn ($2.9bn) for the three-year UK rights,
the clubs, whose income from TV generates nearly half their income,
and their players, whose wages are inflated because of the level of TV
income.
Ms Kokott's opinion also applies to home viewers of live matches. She
said the sale of rights country by country was against the European
Union's internal market.
The only crumb of comfort for the club chairmen is the knowledge that
the £1.4bn ($2.25bn) the Premier League receives from the sale of live
matches to non-European markets is unaffected.
In future, it must be carried out on a pan-European basis, which would
mean redrawing the Premier League's TV rights distribution system.
It is not just the Premier League, but other rights holders such as
Uefa, that look set to feel the effect. Also caught up would be other
creative industries.
"This will have a colossal impact across the EU...," says Robert Vidal
of Taylor Wessing, a European law firm, "as it will initiate a race to
the bottom on price, not only in relation to broadcasting, but also
for digital music, books and film as broadcasters and other providers
compete with each other on a pan-European basis."
Small wonder that Ms Kokott's opinion has staggered the Premier
League, the club chairmen, BSkyB and numerous lawyers.The Premier
League, which retorted that Ms Kokott was simply wrong, must hope that
the ECJ will eventually conclude that she has over-reached herself.
But her position is shared by MEPs and the Brussels executive. Richard
Scudamore, Premier League chief executive, must now draw up a
contingency plan for what a pan-European sale of the league's
broadcast rights would look like from 2013 onwards.
That will involve second-guessing how much broadcasters such as BSkyB
and ESPN, the only probable bidders for a pan-European package, would
pay.
Omar Sheikh of Credit Suisse said: "If this is followed through and it
actually happens, ultimately the value of the rights will probably go
down because there are only two likely bidders on a pan-European
basis.
"Another big question for Sky will be what will they be able to charge
for business subscriptions after this ruling?"
Analysts estimated that the loss of income for BSkyB from pubs and
clubs would be about £70m ($112m). BSkyB insiders were not rushing to
judgment. "The Premier League will adapt and they will find a way to
market rights that maximizes value," said one.