Ultimately money talks and if somebody like Amazon really make a big move in 3 years time, if some of that cash trickles down to these Football League clubs then I'm sure they'll be more willing to vote in favour. Saturday 3pm's and simultaneously showing multiple games isn't really great option for Sky, unless they change their pricing model, but for somebody like Amazon it's something that they could make work.
TV Fixtures and TV Rights thread.
- Thread starter BaZ87
- Start date
Some interesting news regarding the 3pm TV blackout.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...be-shown-on-tv-in-3pm-saturday-slot-nqkgnfrr0
Eleven Sports, who bought the rights to La Liga games in the UK, had been ignoring the 3pm blackout law and streaming La Liga games live prior to the International break. It's reported that the FA and UEFA have pressured the Spanish FA to make sure La Liga stick to the law and stop Eleven Sport broadcasting during the blackout period. Eleven Sports has announced today that they will respect the law for the time being but stated the law is outdated and are considering all legal and regulatory options.
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out because if Eleven Sports are successful in any action they take, it could open the door for Premier League games to be televised at 3pm on a Saturday too.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...be-shown-on-tv-in-3pm-saturday-slot-nqkgnfrr0
Eleven Sports, who bought the rights to La Liga games in the UK, had been ignoring the 3pm blackout law and streaming La Liga games live prior to the International break. It's reported that the FA and UEFA have pressured the Spanish FA to make sure La Liga stick to the law and stop Eleven Sport broadcasting during the blackout period. Eleven Sports has announced today that they will respect the law for the time being but stated the law is outdated and are considering all legal and regulatory options.
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out because if Eleven Sports are successful in any action they take, it could open the door for Premier League games to be televised at 3pm on a Saturday too.
I'm far from convinced that the PL are against the 3pm blackout, in fact I'm all but certain that if they had the possibility of opening up another TV slot for every match week, they'd jump at the chance. The PL are desperate to create more slots to broadcast games to boost the value of the rights and 3pm Saturday is just about as perfect as a slot could be for them.
No doubt the FA are against it but ultimately how secure is the law from a legal point of view? Just because the FA or Premier League create a ruling, it doesn't mean it can't be challenged legally.* Also, even from the FA's point of view, how useful is the law anymore? Yes in the 1950's, having this law really did prevent people from watching games at 3pm on a Saturday but we all know that anybody that wants to watch a 3pm game this Saturday has absolutely no problem in doing so.
*Some years back the PL fined a landlady thousands for subscribing to a greek broadcaster and showing PL games in her pub - the PL claimed that the broadcast was copyrighted for use only in Greece. She challenged this in the courts and the charge against her was overturned as you couldn't legally copyright something on a territory by territory basis. Ultimately this case did prevent all pubs from subscribing to foreign satellite companies (legally) as it was found that pubs required the PL's permission to broadcast their copyrights which they would only do if they subscribed to UK rights holders (Sky and more recently BT).
I know it's not currently an option but I'm certain that they'll be watching the situation with Eleven Sports with a lot of interest. If there's any chance that the 3pm blackout isn't legally secure, I'm certain that we'll see some sort of compromise when the next lot of rights are sold - a single Saturday 3pm kick-off for example.
Well the PL rights aren't going to be up for sale for nearly 3 years again so it'll be a perfect trial before they're due.
BT Sports have retained the rights for the CL for the 2021/22 season through to the 2023/24 season. There was some talk that ITV were going to bid for the rights of some games and it would have been nice to have football on free to air TV again but BT's CL coverage is fantastic.
This is probably a more broader subject than just football rights but I think we're going to see more and more changes to the way subscription tv is offered in the future. As @MissChief touches on, Sky have already fragmented their offering into smaller packages so people can pick and choose what content they want to pay for and what they don't. With Amazon moving into sports and with DAZN growing all the time, that's only going to put Sky under more pressure to be even more innovative with how they offer their content. I'm sure it won't be long before we'll be able to buy PL football from Sky, BT, Amazon or whoever else without having to pay for every other sport and or having to pay for their 'entertainment packs' too. Obviously if you're the person that wants all the entertainment packs, movies and every sport from every provider you're probably going to be worse off but hopefully it'll benefit the majority.
The guy that runs Amazon Prime video has tweeted that Amazon have the rights for the 'top pick matches every Tuesday'. So basically Amazon have the rights for the 2 PL teams matches every Tuesday with BT keeping all other matches on Tuesdays and everything on the Wednesday's.
Two rounds of PL matches on Amazon over Christmas wasn't a big issue - anybody that didn't have Prime could take a free month trial to watch those games but now, if you want to watch all PL football and PL sides in Europe, you really are going to have to sub to 3 different broadcasters.
Two rounds of PL matches on Amazon over Christmas wasn't a big issue - anybody that didn't have Prime could take a free month trial to watch those games but now, if you want to watch all PL football and PL sides in Europe, you really are going to have to sub to 3 different broadcasters.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was saying is that previously, when all Amazon had wad 2 rounds of fixtures over Xmas, anybody that wanted to watch all PL football and PL sides in the CL could do so without paying for Prime, at least not for the whole year. Now that Amazon have regular CL games, if you want to watch everything that's an extra £8 per month.
Not quite. The next rights sale will be for the 2025/26 season onwards and it's unlikely that the PL will sell to more than 3 broadcasters, at least it was reported in a recent Times article that the PL wouldn't sell to more than 3 broadcasters. The danger comes with the possibility of the PL selling to different broadcasters to those that have the CL rights.
From the 24/25 season Amazon and BT will share the rights to the CL - BT still have 99% of matches with Amazon only showing one match every Tuesday (though this will definitely be an English side). This alone already means fans now face having to sign-up to Amazon for at least 10 months rather than just the odd month now if they want all CL matches. If DAZN and or Apple were then to pip BT or Amazon to PL rights then that could mean another subscription or two.
DAZN certainly do want PL rights, that was the main topic of the Times article I mentioned in my post however there's no guarantee that they'll get them. They were in negotiations to buy BT before BT and Discovery agreed their merger - ultimately the price proved too much for them and within the Times article I mentioned, they admit again that the numbers need to add up for them. There's an assumption that Apple will get involved too having recently agreed a deal for the MLS rights but it's far from certain that they'll bid, let alone outbid Sky, BT or Amazon.
As above, the next round of CL rights have already been secured by BT and Amazon so Apple won't be getting those matches anytime soon. It's anyone's guess as to who picks up the PL rights from 2025 however if I were to guess, I'd guess that Sky, BT and Amazon will pay what it takes to keep DAZN out and Apple won't make a big play. PL football is too important to Sky and BT, and the latter now has much deeper pockets than before.
Only time will tell I guess however we know that DAZN had the opportunity to pick up both PL and CL rights in one swoop but wouldn't pay what BT wanted. As rich as their owner is, at some point DAZN have got to start making money because right now they're hugely loss making and their subscriber numbers are very small, certainly in the UK. One thing is for certain is the PL will be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of DAZN and maybe even Apple joining the bidding.
As supporters of PL teams we may not like it and maybe the law does need revisiting however there is a very valid argument that attendances of lower league sides will be effected by PL matches being televised at 3pm on a Saturday. Going back 10+ years ago when Sunderland were in the PL, Nial Quinn confirmed that even Sunderland, a PL side, suffered reduced attendances as a result of local pubs broadcasting their matches via illegal satellite broadcasts.
There are many supporters of PL sides that also follow a lower League side. For instance a noticeable chunk of Tranmere's home crowd will be supporters of Liverpool or Everton. How many of them will stop going to watch Tranmere if they could watch Liverpool/Everton at home or down the pub at 3pm on a Saturday? I don't know the answer btw but I'm sure they'd lose some fans.
There should be a fairly easy compromise here that satisfies everybody. The PL could offer more money to the EFL in return for their support in lifting the 3pm blackout however the PL don't want to give more money to the EFL and they don't want to lift the 3pm blackout either. If the PL cared about the 3pm blackout they could work a way around it very easily - like they do on the last day of the season, they could move matches to a Sunday or move kick-off times to later in the day but they don't because as things stand, there is no value for them to sell these extra games. Everybody who is willing to pay to watch football is already doing so, so Sky, BT etc aren't going to pay more for an extra x games and the PL aren't giving them away for free.
There are many supporters of PL sides that also follow a lower League side. For instance a noticeable chunk of Tranmere's home crowd will be supporters of Liverpool or Everton. How many of them will stop going to watch Tranmere if they could watch Liverpool/Everton at home or down the pub at 3pm on a Saturday? I don't know the answer btw but I'm sure they'd lose some fans.
There should be a fairly easy compromise here that satisfies everybody. The PL could offer more money to the EFL in return for their support in lifting the 3pm blackout however the PL don't want to give more money to the EFL and they don't want to lift the 3pm blackout either. If the PL cared about the 3pm blackout they could work a way around it very easily - like they do on the last day of the season, they could move matches to a Sunday or move kick-off times to later in the day but they don't because as things stand, there is no value for them to sell these extra games. Everybody who is willing to pay to watch football is already doing so, so Sky, BT etc aren't going to pay more for an extra x games and the PL aren't giving them away for free.
Because there's currently no value to broadcasters and therefore the PL to broadcast every game. And the PL aren't going to give these games away for free.
Sky aren't getting any more subscribers if they were broadcasting Brentford - Brighton, Wolves - Bournemouth and Arsenal - Everton at the same time than if they were just broadcasting Arsenal - Everton on its own. Heck, they're unlikely to get many more viewers from their existing subscriber base - almost all of the Brighton, Brentford, Wolves and Bournemouth fans would have just watched the Arsenal - Everton game anyway.
The PL hope that Amazon or another streaming platform will be more interested in multi game broadcasts and that's why they created the package of rights which Amazon brought. They've just been testing the market though.
Not what the PL wanted but not too bad for supporters. More games and one less subscription.
The PL gave Amazon a discount to persuade them to bid 6 years ago, in the hope that they'd make a big play for more rights in the future. Obviously that trial by Amazon wasn't successful enough for them to bid again and it's quite telling that no other streaming service has gone big either.
Given the PL's willingness to do a deal with Amazon at below the reserve price at the last auction and there being no meaningful increase this time (given that more games have been sold, they're actually getting less per game than before), I'd be amazed if Amazon made any meaningful bid. The PL are gagging for Amazon or another streaming platform to come on board - that's why they offered whole midweek packages last time and why they're offering more simultaneous matches this time too.
Although some are, the Saturday 8pm slot was a scheduled time for x amount of games per season as part of the last rights sale.
There were two outstanding packages, one of which BT took and the other Amazon. It was widely reported before the auction that those two packages of games were created for Amazon or another streaming platform (previously you would only have 2 fixtures broadcast instead of all 10) and that the PL were open to selling them at a discounted rate to entice Amazon.
The broadcasters get to choose which games they show from each round of fixtures - first pick, second pick etc is just the order in which the broadcasters choose which games to show. For example, Sky own the packages that have all the first picks (Sunday 4.30 and Saturday 5.30) so each weekend Sky will get the pick of the games. Second picks are split between TNT's 12.30 slot and Sky's Sunday 2pm slot - some weekends BT will get the 2nd pick, others Sky will.What does the ‘first pick’ to ‘fifth pick’ stuff mean? Does the PL select which are the most desirable games?
Premier League completes sales process for UK live rights & free-to-air highlights
Four-year deals to 2028/29 season concluded with Sky Sports and TNT Sports for five live packages and with BBC Sport for free-to-air highlightswww.premierleague.com
There wasn't any noise about the blackout ending, in fact the PL made it crystal clear months ago that they supported it. What the PL are doing is phasing out Saturday 3pm's so that it's no longer an issue.
Broadcasters don't particularly want to show multiple matches at the same time and match going fans prefer Saturday 3pm's as opposed to early or late kick-offs, which is why the PL aren't just offering up 380 games in one go. It's been done gradually, with every rights sale seeing more games broadcast, fewer Saturday 3pm's. At the last rights sale they introduced simultaneous broadcasts for 2 rounds of midweek fixtures and at this sale they've introduced simultaneous broadcasts at the weekend. We're not at a point were around 70% of matches are being shown and they'll hardly any Saturday 3pm kick-offs. In 4 years time don't be surprised if all 380 games are sold and the blackout is still in place - they'll just be more simultaneous broadcasts over the weekend.