One of the world's poorest countries, Burma, where workers earn an average of just £819 a year, has splashed out £25million to buy the rights to show Premier League football on television.
With Burma's current TV contract worth a mere £200,000 over three years, the new deal represents an astonishing 12,400 per cent hike in rights fees.
The deal, involving a pay-TV company called Sky Net, is just one example of the extraordinarily successful way the Premier League have sold their worldwide broadcasting rights for 2013-2016.
In the last round of overseas rights sales, for 2010-13, the League earned £1.437bn from all foreign broadcasters combined.
But overseas deals for 2013-16 will surge past £2bn in value, which, when added to domestic deals for live rights (£3bn from Sky and BT), Match of the Day highlights (£178m from the BBC) and near-live rights and internet rights (still to be sold), means the League will earn a mouthwatering £5.5bn from broadcasting during that three-season period.
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And when the new deals kick in next season, even the club who end up bottom of the Premier League in 2014 will receive a £60m payout from the TV money, while the champions will pocket £100m.
The Premier League's success in selling their product around the world has already put them on top of football's global earners, and this new deal will widen the gap on their closest rivals.
While the Premier League currently pulls in £479m a year from overseas broadcasting, La Liga in Spain get £132m, Italy's Serie A £74m and Germany's Bundesliga just £50m.
The willingness of broadcasters in Burma and elsewhere to spend increasingly large sums to buy the Premier League rights reflects the confidence of companies such as Sky Net, who are unrelated to domestic rights holder BSkyB, that they can find enough customers to subscribe to pay-TV channels carrying Premier League action.
While Burma has been ruled by a military junta since 1962, when Ipswich Town were League champions under Alf Ramsey's managership, the country, now also known as Myanmar, is undergoing a slow and painful transition towards democracy.
Official data from the World Bank places Burma at 164th out of 185 nations in their wealth table, with almost all the poorer nations being in Africa.
But Sky Net believe the economy is becoming sufficiently liberal and that there are now enough wealthy football fans there that they will easily recoup their investment of around £8m per year in a country with a population of 60m, roughly the same as that of Britain.
Burma may represent the biggest percentage hike in rights values but there are numerous examples of other markets booming this time.
In Thailand, a company called Cable Thai Holdings have done a £202m deal for 2013-16, a 432 per cent increase on the £38m paid for 2010- 13. Rights values have also leapt, among other places, in India (up 225 per cent from £28m to £91m), Vietnam (up 249 per cent from £6.3m to £22m) and Indonesia, doubling from £25m to £50m.
Other Asia markets, notable Singapore and Hong Kong, were already hugely lucrative and worth between £150m and £200m for the three years to 2013.
New deals have retained the value if not increased it in those places, while Japan and Korea have seen increased deals but not on the scale of some neighbours.
Uniquely in China, the Premier League have sold the rights on a six-year basis from 2013, not a three-year deal.
This is to allow for long-term development of a key market that has been traditionally hard to crack.
On the other side of the world, in the United States, rights values have soared as NBC thrashed rival bidders to win the 2013-16 rights for £157m, or almost four times the amount paid by Fox for 2010-13.
Across the Americas and Central America combined, the League will earn around £240m from 2013, or four times the £60m currently.
The last set of deals to be done are in Europe, where only Scandinavian rights have been sold, for £162m, up from £111m last time.
Much of the rest of Europe is expected to show flat or small growth. But the total pot will still be enormous.
Olympic stars missing from BBC shortlistAfter last year's controversy over the absence of women on the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the arguments this year are raging over the big names missing when the 12-strong list is announced on the One Show on Monday.
Golden girl: Laura Trott missing from listNobody from the country's three main sports will feature after a poor year for Britain's footballers, cricketers and rugby players.
But in the afterglow of London 2012, the final dozen will inevitably be dominated by Olympic and Paralympic heroes.
Even so, a glut of cycling contenders means one or more of Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Laura Trott and Sarah Storey will not make the 12, and there has been much debate over the appropriate mix of Olympic and Paralympic contenders.
If Paralympic stars Jonnie Peacock, David Weir and Ellie Simmonds are all included, others, such as Ben Ainslie, Kat Grainger, Alastair Brownlee, Greg Rutherford or Nicola Adams, must make way.
The 12-person selection panel, headed by BBC Director of Sport Barbara Slater, have ensured a decent mix of genders and sports but the only four 'absolute banker' names on the shortlist are hot favourite Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah, Andy Murray and Jess Ennis.
Murray will not attend the show on December 16 but the BBC will have a live feed to his winter training base in Miami.
Golfers Ian Poulter and Rory McIlroy may not make the 12 as they will inevitably be honoured in the Team of the Year award for Europe's Ryder Cup win.
Flying high: Sir Alex Ferguson flew back with supporters Sir Alex has the common touch
Proof that Sir Alex Ferguson has not lost his common touch came when he flew home from Turkey in midweek on a fans' charter, and took to the public address to thank supporters for travelling to the 1-0 defeat at Galatasaray.
Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton hitched a ride back on Tuesday night, rather than return on Manchester United's plane on Wednesday, to make sure they were back for the funeral of former Old Trafford winger Kenny Morgans, a survivor of the Munich air crash, who died last weekend in South Wales at the age of 73.
