The party may not be over for European premium football rights but there are signs that leading pay TV operators are ganging up against the rampant inflation of the last few bidding cycles. The recent auction for English Premier League (EPL) rights, still hanging in the air with two packages unsold, gave a strong hint that operators are no longer willing to beat each other up over rights prices while the leagues stand by cheering them on to bid ever higher. It is true there were rumors in the air of the big Internet technology players, certainly Google, Facebook or Amazon, bidding, but the cost and profile of a national EPL package do not really fit their business model and…