The Premier League is in danger of losing a £100m TV contract after one of its Mexican rights holders, Fox Sports Mexico, failed to make payments owed for this season.
The Guardian has learned that the Premier League is considering its options, which include legal action, cancelling the contract and taking Fox Sports’s live games off air in Mexico until it is paid.
Fox Sports has a four-year contract to broadcast live Premier League games in Mexico, which runs until the end of the 2027-28 season, but is struggling to honour its commitments because of cashflow problems. The broadcaster has failed to pay several other sports organisations whose TV rights it owns, including Concacaf and the NFL.
The Premier League’s deal with Fox Sports started this season after its contract with Paramount+ was cancelled. Under the terms of a joint deal with HBO Max worth about £50m a year, Fox Sports holds rights to show about 100 Premier League matches each season, with 90 broadcast by HBO.
The NFL ceased transmission of its games on Fox Sports Mexico before a scheduled NFC West clash between the LA Rams and San Francisco 49ers last Thursday. Fox Sports did broadcast Bournemouth’s 1-1 draw with West Ham on Monday despite the dispute, but the Premier League has not ruled out following the NFL’s lead in future.
Concacaf, the confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean football, has filed a legal claim against Fox Sports for £20m over unpaid rights fees for the Champions Cup, the North and Central American equivalent of the Uefa Champions League. Sources with knowledge of that case have told the Guardian that the legal action was a last resort by Concacaf, which has given Fox Sports multiple opportunities to restructure the terms of the deal and refinance the company without receiving the unpaid fees.
The long-running nature of that dispute does not augur well for the Premier League, which may be forced to put half of its Mexican rights back on the market.
The league’s global TV rights deals are the most lucrative in the world and the biggest source of income for its clubs. Overseas broadcast contracts are projected to earn the clubs £6.5bn between 2025 and 2028, a 23% increase on the previous cycle, and significantly more each year than the £6.4bn value of domestic rights between 2025 and 2029.
Despite this success the possible collapse of a £100m deal in Mexico is a problem the league could do without, particularly at a time when some of its spending is being scrutinised. Several clubs have expressed concern at the significant increase in the league’s legal costs in recent years, which reached £45m last season, with the bill split equally between the 20 clubs.
Fox Sports’s financial problems appear to stem from a delay in a proposed takeover by Fox’s parent company, Fox US, which previously owned it. The Mexican offshoot is owned by the Lauman Group, a global media conglomerate controlled by the Mexican businessman Manuel Arroyo.
The separation of Fox Sports Mexico from the US company took place five years ago as part of Disney’s £56bn purchase of 21st Century Fox, with Lauman licensing the brand from Disney and buying international sports rights including the Premier League, NFL and Formula One. This year Lauman agreed to sell Fox Sports Mexico to Fox US and received regulatory approval, but the deal has not progressed.
The Premier League declined to comment. Fox Sports Mexico did not respond to requests for comment.
