Saturday night games in new Premier League TV rights package

Published on: 08 December 2017

The new deal wil replace the record £5.136bn deal struck with Sky and BT Sport in 2015

Premier League games will be played in a Saturday night slot for the first time under the terms of a new broadcast package from the 2019-20 season.

Broadcasters will bid for rights to show 200 live matches, more than 50% of the league's 380 games and an increase on the current deal's 168.

The new package will also allow successful bidders to broadcast all midweek matches live.

Eight games will be broadcast in the Saturday night slot.

This is likely to mean matches shown at the same time as prime-time favourites such as Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor.

The new contracts will replace the record £5.136bn deal struck with Sky Sports and BT Sport in 2015.

That three-season agreement for 2016-17-2018-19 represented a 70% increase on the previous £3bn deal.

Sky paid £4.176bn to show 126 matches, including the first Friday evening games and both Sunday packages, and BT paid £960m for 42 games.

Source: bbc.com

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