Originally Posted by hendero:
“I suppose much depends on whether the rumours about the Premier League telling all the bidders, "Your bids are all close to one another, please bid again" are true. If they are true, then how would they all have been so close unless the PLgave them an indication of what they were expecting, or had somehow found out and tipped everyone else off?
What seems more likely is that the various bids came in, and they tipped off those who had bid the lowest that they needed to up their offer or they would lose out.
But I have no idea how these things work in practice. I wonder why they don't just have an open auction, set a minimum threshold, and let the TV companies bid it out in open warfare.”
Nobody on here has seen the tender document.
But for the 2007/10 and 2010/13 auctions (governed by agreement with EC) the PL could always (***) order another round of bidding if they wanted to - ie bids did not have to be that close - it was the PL's judgement call.
We don't know exactly what the tender said for 2013/16 but I imagine the PL would have wanted to keep as much flexibility as possible.
The reason for no open auction is that with blind bidding you may well get more - because nobody knows what everyone else is bidding - so the winner may outbid the 2nd place by a wide margin which won't happen in an open auction.
(***) Unless the PL declared a round as the final round in advance.