Every three years, England’s Premier League tests its value as a television property, and usually, that test produces smiles among its clubs. Last week, it began the formal process of seeking more money from networks at home and abroad that want to broadcast its soccer games. The first phase was to seek bids from the news media companies that want the British rights starting with the 2016-17 season.

Next year, perhaps by spring, similar requests will go out to global networks, including those in the United States.

The short term of government-regulated Premier League contracts means that at some point during the second season of an existing deal, requests to bid for the next set of contracts are sent out. It creates the sort of frequent corporate drama that has been lost in the United States because of the trend toward very long deals. During the last go-round, British Sky Broadcasting and British Telecom acquired Premier League rights in Britain for $4.7 billion, but that was only about half the league’s global take of more than $8 billion.

A sliver of that worldwide revenue came from NBC Universal, which is paying $250 million over three years for television and digital rights in the United States. The figure is nearly four times what Fox Soccer had been paying in the last deal, but it has paid off: E.P.L. games have strengthened NBCSN’s identity and provided unexpectedly high viewership, with an audience that is younger and wealthier than most sports viewers.