THE Premier League’s new domestic TV rights deal is staggering, but what does it mean for Saints?

For starters it makes the £46.9m the club received in broadcasting income in 2012-13, their first year back in the Premier League, look old-fashioned.

Only two years ago, the Premier League’s TV rights deal was worth a (in comparison) relatively derisory £1.773 billion and Saints had just finished 14th.

Last season, when a new television deal kicked in, they ended up with over £60m.

Of that, £52.2m came from their equal share of the tv cash. Champions Manchester City received that amount, as did rock bottom Cardiff City.

Of that £52.2m, around £21.6 million came from their share of the domestic TV rights, and around £26.3 million from overseas TV rights. The rest, around £4.2m, came from what is known as ‘central commercial’.

As recently as 2010/11 – when Saints were winning promotion from third division – all the 20 Premier League clubs received ‘only’ £31.7m as an equal share.

In four years, the figure had risen by over £20m.

Now it’s set to leap even more.

Saints also banked a facility fee of £8.6m last season – the money they earned from their games that were shown live.

Liverpool enjoyed the biggest facility fee of £21.9m, while Saints were one of eight clubs to bank the minimum £8.6m.

Trying to comprehend what Saints will receive when the new £5.136 billion deal (a 70 per cent increase on the £3.02 billion for 2013-16) kicks in makes the mind boggle.

From the season after next, Saints will receive more than £100m a year in television rights income (domestic and overseas combined) ... obviously providing they are still milking Rupert Murdoch’s cash cow by then.

And if they are an established top-six club, they could receive more than £140m (25 per cent of the money is allocated according to finishing position).

Whatever way you look at it, it is an obscene amount of money.

Inevitably, more will be spent on players’ wages.

Hopefully it will also see Saints and other Premier League clubs follow Chelsea in paying the Living Wage to the rest of its staff.

As of last November, the living wage was £9.15 an hour in London and £7.85 an hour in the rest of the UK.

For the sake of the fans, it is hoped the deal means no ticket price rises for the next five years.

A reduction would be nice.

For the current season, Saints put their season ticket prices up by around four per cent.

The cheapest adult season ticket for 2014/15 was £541, while the most expensive was £853 (most expensive renewal was £759).

The prices went up even though Saints, and all the other Premier League clubs, received millions more in tv contract monies in 2013/14.

If Saints are as concerned about attracting the next generation of fans as they are about producing tomorrow’s players, ticket prices are one area where they can use the Premier League’s largesse for good.

They also have a duty to invest in grassroots football as former sports minister Richard Caborn, a board member of the Football Foundation, has highlighted.

Caborn has suggested that five per cent of each club’s television income be spent on facilities like 3G pitches. Time will tell if budding young footballers in Millbrook, Thornhill and Harefield benefit from the trickle-down effect.

At least Saints look as well equipped as any of the top-flight clubs to spend the windfall wisely.

They have a business model to be proud of. The investment in their academy is already a sure sign of their commitment to homegrown talent and there is no reason why this deal should change that.

The club have splashed out millions on an array of foreign talent since returning to the Premier League in 2012 – Osvaldo, Ramirez, Wanyama, Tadic, Mane, Lovren, Pelle, Gardos etc.

But they have also fielded no shortage of home grown youngsters – Shaw, Lallana, Ward-Prowse, Targett, Gallagher, Reed, Hesketh. While some clubs will no doubt fall into the trap of paying more for average foreign players, the likelihood is that Saints will be wise enough to use a decent portion of their share to augment the club’s main strength.

That way, at least, they will be doing their bit for the future of the national team, as well as their own.