ONLINE STREAMING SERVICE Amazon continued its major move into the sports broadcasting market, by breaking the dominance of Sky Sports and BT Sport to win the right to show 20 Premier League matches per season for three years from 2019/20 onwards.
The US company is the first to break up the previous duopoly of Sky and BT Sport and will exclusively livestream all 10 matches over one Bank Holiday weekend and another 10 during one midweek fixture programme.
Sky and BT will nevertheless continue to show the vast majority of live matches, with 128 and 52 respectively throughout the course of the season in new three-year broadcasting deals announced by the Premier League today.
As part of its package, Amazon will have exclusive access to 20 matches per season comprising two full fixture rounds — the first December midweek round and the festive Bank Holiday round.
It will be the first time a full round of Premier League fixtures will be broadcast live in the UK, and in addition Amazon Prime members will be able to watch weekly highlights of all top-flight games throughout the season.
In addition, the Irish rights for that pack of 20 matches has been bought by Premier Sports, which is owned by the co-founder of the now defunct Setanta Sports Michael O’Rourke.
As part of that deal, the broadcaster will show 33 live Saturday afternoon games in the Republic of Ireland, taking over that exclusive slot from Sky Sports.
Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore said: “We are very pleased to welcome Premier Sports as a new partner from 2019/20 onwards. We know they will make available high-quality Premier League coverage that will appeal to local fans.”
In a separate announcement, the Premier League also agreed that there would be a change in the distribution of money gained from the foreign broadcast deal.
The bix six clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham — managed to get the necessary 14 votes out of the 20 to agree that from 2019/20, any increase in the current international rights package, will be distributed according to league position and not equally distributed between all 20 clubs as it has been up to now.
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How many bloody subscriptions are needed now?
@Declan Snow: 3
This doesn’t affect us as its UK only. Premier Sports/eir sport have won this package in Ireland along with the 3pm KO package from Sky
@Brian Burke: what effect does that have in terms of money .
Doesn’t affect Mobdro
@Don Juan: There are two types of sports fans… Those who use Mobdro. And those who are suckers.
@Alan J. McKenna: mobdro can be pretty shi1 sometimes!! cant be depended on for the big games!!!
@Don Juan: ssshh
@Brian Burke: I don’t think so Brian , that 3pm Saturday live package for Ireland that was bought by the ex satanta guy is not part of the btsport / air deal , so there will be 3 separate package holders in Ireland from 2019 , which is becoming a bit of a joke , the Premier league are in danger of killing the goose that last the eggs , last season was the first year of the new multi billions deal and the clubs made profits on the big tv money- but the games and ‘title race’ or lack of was pretty lack lustre – im not so sure that the guaranteed subscribers needed to pay for all these packages won’t start to wane and a lot will just catch the highlights or go to watch in the pub. They are overkilling the subscription model in my opinion
Should there not be a reversal so to speak of competition rules with regards sporting broadcast rights. Surely it’s anti competitive from a consumer perspective to have multiple subscriptions to watch sports. Why not allow them all equal broadcast rights then compete with eachother on price for a total package? Better for the consumer and fans!
@Coco86: The EU are to blame for the rights being split up. It was their brainwave that started it as one provider having all games was apparently unfair on the consumer. Now we have this absolute mess.
@Sideshow Bob: It wouldn’t be an issue if each provider had rights to the entire season then at least the consumer could subscribe to one as opposed to two or three! Im sure the EU didnt see this scenario arising but it needs sorting.
@Sideshow Bob: seriously doubt the EU made a ruling on the TV rights of soccer in the way you suggest
@Sideshow Bob: Its not the EUs fault the premier league are disgustingly greedy. In the long run this will be great for consumers. With a fragmented market, epl will no longer able to dictate such ridiculous sums to broadcasters and funds and prices will slowly come down. This is a short term experiment from Amazon, nothing more. They snapped up the rights because no one else was willing to pay that stupid money for them. This is why Scudamore has today stepped down as chief of the EPL (been there since 1999) as he knows the market for TV rights is slowly plataeuing and he doesn’t want to be in charge when it takes a proper nosedive.
@Coco86: I agree I think the premier league themselves are responsible , they make more cash having more than one subscriber – as suggested it makes much more sense to force providers to have access to all games and then you have a choice , in Australia last year one of the mobile phone operators had a free premiership access for live games as part of your mobile subscription !! Its a big money rip off on this side of the planet for sure. Still think they are missing the fact the season was very lack lustre and a lot of the football was pretty dull and no title ‘race’ – I think they are over playing their premier league are over playing their hand.
To the author, that’s a UK only deal.
@Sideshow Bob: that is what the article said !! , and then explained IN ADDITION the Irish package for .Saturday games for 3pm were bought
A monthly subscription to Amazon prime is “currently” 5.99. Watch this space..
A joke I remember as a child all you needed was a satellite dish
@Jim: I remember as a child all we had were highlights and two live cup finals.
@Joey Navinski: and had to walk home in your bare feet from the pub.
This may be a help for struggling pubs. You pretty much have to go to a pub to watch all the games as you cant have all the subscriptions required to watch at home
@Kingshu: Duno about that most who I see going into pubs to just watch games will prob buy 1 glass of orange
@Kingshu: Get your broadband through Eir and you get BT Sport, then buy the sky sports package through sky. Not exactly rocket science or totally exorbitant if you really want to watch all the games at home.
@diao: Dearest broadband in Ireland is Eir and the dearest package is sky sports
@Jim: yeah and it is 5.50 for a rock shandy in the local pub and that was before the sugar tax – I would imagine thats even more profitable margin than a pint as none of the alcohol taxes and excise duties apply !
Turners Cross
@Colm O’Buachalla: Couldn’t agree more Colm! Oriel Park for me.
This is a disgrace. Fleecing the punter on the street. And then they wonder why their numbers are down and so many people are streaming games illegally. It’s all shareholder dividend driven but it’s out of the pockets of Normal people that the money comes from. Funk them. This house of cards is going to fall around their ears when they realise they have taken it too far. I hope people mobdro the funk out of this.
the headline caption in the photo should more accurately read – fans will be able to PAY for more eve games than ever before !!