The 2019-22 Premier League rights contracts with Sky, BT and Amazon — worth around £5bn — were rolled over to 2025 during the pandemic, meaning this will be the first competitive domestic auction since 2018.

However, analysts have warned there is a risk of a drop in values thanks to the pressure on broadcasters. The total value of European football media rights has already stagnated, according to analysts at Enders.

“If post-Covid inflation was factored in, we estimate that the value would be down 17 per cent on 2018-19 by 2023-24 in real terms,” they said, pointing to the competitiveness of the broadcasting market “where all indications point downwards consistent with the tepid consumer market”.

There’s also the timing: The tour has become the perfect outing for concert-goers itching for a post-pandemic live music immersive experience. “We are in an experience economy where people crave going out and participating in social events,” says Alice Enders, a music industry analyst at Enders Analysis and a former senior economist at the World Trade Organization. “It's no surprise that people are flocking to this Eras Tour experience in what is increasingly an otherwise digital environment we live in.”

Fans are even clamoring to get their hands on physical copies of Swift’s music. “Streaming has taken over the purchase of the physical album product, but Taylor Swift is among the artists that still makes money from vinyl and CDs because they’ve become collector's items for her fans,” says Enders. 

After years of conquering consumers at bargain prices, streamers have changed their strategy. "After gaining market share and establishing consumption habits, especially at the level of an entire family, it is possible to begin to exercise the elasticity of demand", decrypts Alice Enders, director of research at Enders Analysis .

"The average number of services per household will drop, it is inevitable, especially since this is not the end of price increases in mature markets", warns Alice Enders. To guard against “churn” (the loss of a customer), certain platforms such as Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video encourage their subscribers to commit for a year, instead of a month, with cheaper offers.

Equities analyst Gareth Sutcliffe at Enders Analysis said the restructuring won’t significantly affect Microsoft’s bottom line — for now.

“Microsoft will have diminished margins as they’ve effectively appointed Ubisoft as a reseller. But this is a really small and emerging market at present — Microsoft is still going to be a dominant force in cloud gaming. They’re just relinquishing some pricing control,” Sutcliffe said.

This sluggishness is due to ongoing fears of a recession contributing to a downturn in the advertising economy, whose effects were compounded by inflation and rising interest rates that chilled debt financing, according to Joseph Teasdale, head of technology at media firm Enders Analysis.

“The leagues have exploited the intense competition between media companies, who are seeking to differentiate their streaming services by extending sport rights deals to cover both their linear and streaming assets,” Adam Dalrymple, research analyst at Enders Analysis, tells The Current. “European football is much cheaper than the NFL or NBA in the U.S., but still popular enough to drive viewing on these platforms.”

It comes a month after an Enders Analysis report said that the number of articles on women’s sport, and the print page space devoted to them and prominence given to them online, has “skyrocketed” in the past two years.

The report said “Every aspect of coverage is improving, unlike in men’s sport, which has reached saturation.”

It added: “The evident consumer interest in women’s sport will not cannibalise the interest or space devoted to men’s—different publications operate independently, and if anything, the potential to grab readership is an opportunity, not a hindrance.”

Meanwhile, the era of easy tech funding, fuelled by low interest rates, which allowed WeWork's spread has ended, says Claire Holubowskyj, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis, who said the firm now stands as "the poster child of overhyped start-up".

"It was able to grow because of that culture of really backing tech companies," she says. "That's changed now - the broader economy has shifted."

The MLS deal gave the company just that. ESPN is US-centric, however, with no presence in the largest European markets — a big turnoff for Apple, if past actions are a guide. “They were very fussy when they spoke with the NFL last year,” noted François Godard of media research firm Enders Analysis. “They wanted global rights, they wanted to operate digital. The NFL would not give them what they wanted.”

Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, the media research company, believes the most likely reform will be a tweaking of the licence fee combined with increased use of commercial partnerships to keep production costs down.

She says: “I think there will be more link-ups with the streaming services in the way that Doctor Who is being co-produced by Disney+, and I think there will be a tweaked licence fee that requires wealthier households to pay more.

“The Government could also look at charging businesses more to access BBC services: in Germany, all businesses have to pay towards public service broadcasters because they use their websites and programmes in the workplace.”