The Premier League, while making soothing noises about its own immunity from the recession, has significantly put out its tender for the next round of TV rights early, with 18 months of the current deal still to run.
That is being viewed by many industry insiders as the first signs of concern that the Premier League's cash bonanza may be about to end, at a time when its member clubs are £3billion in debt.
And the league is banking on the rumours that ESPN, the Disney-owned American TV network, will join the fray, and try to take the lions' share of a market which has been largely cornered by Sky and Setanta.
But many within the game, and the country's biggest fans' group, claim that the growth of pirate internet sites and illegal pub broadcasts will eat into the next deal for TV rights, due to begin in 2010.
Mark Longden is a Manchester United fan and an executive committee member at the Football Supporters Federation, which looks after fans' interests.
Illegal
He has made a special study of TV rights deals, and says: "I can't imagine that the TV companies have failed to notice the amount of illegal broadcasting going on in pubs for three o'clock games.
"Also, the improvement in quality and availability of live streaming on the internet is a big factor.
"These days it is so easy to watch your football for free, and the quality is so much better than it used to be. It will only become better and more freely available."
Sky and Setanta certainly have seen the threat, but they are struggling to do anything about it. In recent years they have hiked the prices of showing their games to £13,000 for pubs and other licensed premises, and they have prosecuted website operators for copyright breach.
But their efforts have been described as being like the old fairground game of "whack-a-mole" - as soon as they belt one offender with the rubber mallet, another pops up to take its place.
Measures to quash the free availability of Premier League football on the internet have been discussed, including a "tax" on broadband users who participate in file-sharing, something for which the music industry is also pushing.
But policing the internet is a logistical nightmare, and thrifty football fans would simply use sites based in countries such as China, beyond the reach of Western copyright laws.
Agreement
The very first Premier League deal in 1992 was worth £38m-a-season - the last agreement was worth £567m-a-season. That figure, an increase of two-thirds, came as a shock to many in the game, who felt the value of TV rights had hit a ceiling.
Said Longden: "I couldn't believe the job that Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore did, in negotiating the amount of money he did last time. But I can't see how that can be sustained."
But it is not just supporters groups who are concerned that the Premier League may be heading into a crisis.
FA chairman Lord Triesman was the latest influential figure to warn of the "tangible danger" posed by the credit crunch, especially to clubs heading into such dark days with a debt burden.
Scudamore was backed by Manchester United chief executive David Gill, who also hints that the big clubs are expecting ESPN to join the bidding war this time around.
"We don't see a situation where it falls off a cliff," said Gill, who saw United's holding company Red Football make a £60m loss last year. "The recession will not last forever, and the Premier League is speaking with the broadcasters about a new contract from 2010."
One option for the Premier League could be to set up their own TV station and sell subscriptions direct to fans.
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It doesn't matter to us City fans. Ha Ha Ha.
When ESPN were thought to be contenders for live Bundesliga rights recently, it pushed the pay-TV channel Premiere to pay €1 billion. So there's every chance they could have a similar effect here. The more bidders for the six packages, the higher the bids are likely to be.
However, it tends to the the case that large increases in the PL TV deals are followed by a period of consolidation and the smart money would be on this happening again this time.
Expect MUST to put negative spin on this story however and tell us how we're all doomed.
Doesn't surprise me to see the denial about the potential for this to go belly up at some point. Those who think this gravy train will roll on forever would do well to see what Gareth Southgate has to say in today's Guardian.
It won't carry on and when it hits the buffers there will be plenty of us laughing at those whose arrogance costs them.
old tom . it's time the glazers took the gloves off and opt out of the communal tv deal (it's always been their plan). its the only real way united will generate significantly more revenue.
Since PL has been broadcast Sky have done a brilliant job so we had to only pay one fee to watch. Since Setanta we now have to pay two fee's. IF Espn get in then it will be 3 fee's so in the end people will say no more. As it is Setanta put up their monthly fee's by over 30% from last season so we can expect more rises in subscription fee's from them all. The normal fan who has to watch all the TV matches is now paying about £75 a month and by next season I can see this going up to about £100 a month where do these broadcasters think we can find this amount of money each month.
Possibly each club should broadcast its own games and then their own fans can decide whether they want to pay.
IF it goes on this way then soon they will have no tv fans because they are getting priced out of the game. Also with the credit crunch where do they think families will cut down remeber luxeries are usually the first to go to save money.