“ AMAZON PRIME TO SHOW LIVE PREMIER LEAGUE “

“ AMAZON PRIME TO SHOW LIVE PREMIER LEAGUE “

BBC

Thursday 7th June 2018

Amazon will show 20 Premier League matches a season for three years from 2019, after winning one of the final two broadcast packages.

The online streaming service has won the rights to show every game from the first round of midweek fixtures in December and all 10 matches on Boxing Day as part of the three-year deal.

The matches will be available free to Amazon Prime's UK members.

The other unsold package of 20 games was bought by BT Sport for £90m.

That takes their total number of games to 52 per season, while a further 112 will be shown by Sky Sports, including prime-time Saturday night fixtures.

Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore described Amazon as an "exciting new partner".

The new deals mark the first time a full round of matches will be shown live in the UK.

How can I watch these games on Amazon?

You will need a Prime membership, which costs £79 a year or £7.99 a month.

In addition to live action, there will also be weekly highlights of all Premier League games throughout the season, although it has not been announced when that will be broadcast.

Prime can be streamed on any Smart TV, mobile device or through an Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Amazon, which started as an online retailer, already broadcasts the US Open tennis, ATP World Tour Tennis events and NFL games.

Who has won what?

The Premier League offered 200 live matches a season to broadcasters, an increase from the 168 available in 2015.

Other changes for the 2019-2022 deal include eight individual games being shown live in a 'prime-time' Saturday night slot, three complete rounds of 10 midweek matches all shown live, and one set of bank holiday games - not known to be Boxing Day.

The broadcasters bid on seven packages of fixtures and in February, Sky Sports paid £3.58bn for four of those, while BT Sport spent £885m on another.

BT initially said it had paid £90m for its final package, taking their total spend to £975m over three seasons, though that information was later removed from its website.

That would take the total value of the rights to £4.55bn, with Amazon yet to announce how much it has paid.

The Premier League's last deal, agreed in 2015 and running until 2019, was worth £5.14bn.

What are the packages?

Package A - won by BT. 32 matches on Saturdays at 12:30
Package B - won by Sky Sports. 32 matches on Saturdays at 17:30
Package C - won by Sky Sports. 24 matches on Sundays at 14:00 and eight matches on Saturdays at 19:45
Package D - won by Sky Sports. 32 matches on Sundays at 16:30
Package E - won by Sky Sports. 24 matches on Mondays at 20:00 or Fridays at 19:30/20:00 and eight matches on Sundays at 14:00
Package F - won by Amazon. 10 matches from one Bank Holiday and all 10 from the Boxing Day fixture programme
Package G - won by BT. 20 matches from two midweek fixture programmes

The last two packages took an age to be sorted. I think the FA were really eager to break into the streaming of games.

The last two packages took an age to be sorted. I think the FA were really eager to break into the streaming of games.

Problem is they have a cap on how many packages a broadcaster can buy. If they didn’t, I expect nearly all of them would have been bought by Sky very quickly. Probably better for competition that they do have a cap.

Interested to see how it works with Amazon. If it goes well then you’d expect Netflix, Twitter, Apple, Facebook etc to be in the bidding processes for the matches next time around.

The last two packages took an age to be sorted. I think the FA were really eager to break into the streaming of games.

Problem is they have a cap on how many packages a broadcaster can buy. If they didn’t, I expect nearly all of them would have been bought by Sky very quickly. Probably better for competition that they do have a cap.

Interested to see how it works with Amazon. If it goes well then you’d expect Netflix, Twitter, Apple, Facebook etc to be in the bidding processes for the matches next time around.

Think sky was locked out of bids because they already had allocated ammount possible under present rules, trouble now is fans will end up having to pay multiple times to watch the premiership
And as you say Netflix ect could add to ammount in future so will ordinary fans be priced out of football?

I can see the prices to watch Premiership matches go through the roof. I wonder what would happen if everybody cancelled their contracts with the suppliers? It will happen one day, football is getting to greedy.

The last two packages took an age to be sorted. I think the FA were really eager to break into the streaming of games.

Problem is they have a cap on how many packages a broadcaster can buy. If they didn’t, I expect nearly all of them would have been bought by Sky very quickly. Probably better for competition that they do have a cap.

Interested to see how it works with Amazon. If it goes well then you’d expect Netflix, Twitter, Apple, Facebook etc to be in the bidding processes for the matches next time around.

Think sky was locked out of bids because they already had allocated ammount possible under present rules, trouble now is fans will end up having to pay multiple times to watch the premiership
And as you say Netflix ect could add to ammount in future so will ordinary fans be priced out of football?

That’s the worry for fans who want to watch all TV matches. Could be four or five different subscriptions needed. Hopefully would encourage bigger crowds?

The last two packages took an age to be sorted. I think the FA were really eager to break into the streaming of games.

Problem is they have a cap on how many packages a broadcaster can buy. If they didn’t, I expect nearly all of them would have been bought by Sky very quickly. Probably better for competition that they do have a cap.

Interested to see how it works with Amazon. If it goes well then you’d expect Netflix, Twitter, Apple, Facebook etc to be in the bidding processes for the matches next time around.

Think sky was locked out of bids because they already had allocated ammount possible under present rules, trouble now is fans will end up having to pay multiple times to watch the premiership
And as you say Netflix ect could add to ammount in future so will ordinary fans be priced out of football?

That’s the worry for fans who want to watch all TV matches. Could be four or five different subscriptions needed. Hopefully would encourage bigger crowds?

Well we are on 3 subscriptions already and it would work out cheaper just watching home team.

This sounds great news ! Especially if you stream games! Chances are Bluebirds will feature in these ones with Sky and BT favouring the “Top 6” every week. Thoughts anyone

Cardiff City would feature twice IF we stay up.

But then all other clubs will feature twice as well.

They have the rights for 20 games but they are all played at the same time across two days, First midweek game in December and Boxing Day.

You won't be able to watch 20 games live.