Chelsea chairman and co-owner Todd Boehly is a divisive figure on the terraces at Stamford Bridge and throughout the wider football industry, but he is an authority in sports finance.
As well as his circa 13 per cent stake in Chelsea, Boehly co-owns the NBA’s LA Lakers, WNBA’s LA Sparks and MLB’s LA Dodgers, all alongside fellow Blues shareholder Mark Walter.
In the winter of 2025, he took a 49 per cent stake in The Hundred cricket franchise Trent Rockets, again alongside another Chelsea investor in Jonathan Goldstein. He also has financial interests in esports, sports data and analytics, and sports-adjacent real estate.
Remember Infinite Athlete, Chelsea’s front-of-shirt sponsor for about two-thirds of 2023-24? That was a Boehly-backed company, too. Indeed, the Premier League investigated that deal to make sure it represented fair market value and was not artificially inflating the club’s commercial income.
Gary Neville says the Chelsea owners are CLUELESS! Do you agree? 🤔
Neville blames the Chelsea owners for Liam Rosenior's failure 🤷♂️
So, while Boehly’s private equity-inspired approach has not yet paid real dividends at Chelsea and has indeed alienated large sections of the fanbase, his voice does resonate among the Premier League’s ownership class.
When, therefore, he made a bold prediction about the future of the Premier League’s media operation last year, the industry took notice.
The Premier League’s TV deals are the envy of football. They earn more from their international rights than they do domestically, and top-flight clubs shared £2.8bn in media income last season. Chelsea accounted for about £164m of that. And despite a pitiful end to the campaign, the Blues will be insulated from a huge fall-off in TV revenue because the overall value of the rights increased again this season.
However Boehly and his fellow club owners aren’t satisfied. While the relationship with Sky Sports and, to a lesser extent, the likes of TNT Sports has been wildly successful, those companies cannot continue to pay exponentially more money every four-year rights cycle. Indeed, the last uplift was just four per cent which, when assessed on a per-game basis and relative to inflation, was a pretty big step backwards.
So, what is the answer? According to Boehly and a number of his bedfellows at Premier League shareholder meetings, it’s streaming.
In February last year, The Chelsea Chronicle heard Boehly speak at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit. “I’m not saying [one streamer] is the blatant answer right this minute, but I think that’s where we’re headed,” the billionaire said, addressing the prospect of a direct-to-consumer or over-the-top streaming service one day taking over from linear TV.
At the same event this year, Premier League CEO Richard Masters announced that the league would launch its first direct-to-consumer streaming service in Singapore, in a move widely trailed as being a trial run for a global product one day.
Today, the Premier League confirmed how much ‘Premier League +’, as they have christened it, will cost consumers in Singapore. As relayed by City AM: S$16 (£9.31) for a one-day pass, S$44 (£25.62) for a monthly rolling contract, and S$399 (£232.39) for a year.
So, Boehly’s prediction is in full swing – and the service in its current form will be half the price paid by UK fans.
For now, the Premier League are happy licensing their intellectual property to the likes of Sky Sports, so don’t expect a domestic rollout any time soon. But the direction of travel is clear, and Chelsea’s financial future will be wrapped up in the initiative if and when it does accelerate in the UK.
Chelsea travel to Australia, Hong Kong and Indonesia for pre-season this summer
How concerned about fatigue are you going into 2026-27?
“Of course, in order to repackage all [the existing Premier League rights], the owners have to be willing to take some level of risk,” Boehly also said at the Business of Football Summit in 2025.
“How many global platforms are there? Probably just Netflix. If you’re thinking about how to launch a global product, you do it in partnership with content like this. If you really think about what it could do to unlock a global media platform, there’s nothing like this.
“It’s a long conversation, and [the Premier League] are on it. They are thinking about media rights going forward, they’ve got great leadership in that area, and they are thinking about how to get everyone to row simultaneously and be pulling for each other.”
Receive a digest of our best Chelsea content each week direct to your mailbox
