Sky Sports and TNT Sports at risk of losing Premier League coverage as ‘rival bidder emerges’ to take huge fixtures
SKY SPORTS and TNT Sports face competition from a rival bidder for Premier League coverage.
The broadcasting duo have had the majority share of Premier League games for a sustained period, but according to the Telegraph that could be about to change.
Amazon are reportedly exploring the idea of taking up a larger chunk of the televised games that are available to broadcasters.
Prime Video already shows 20 games a season, but they are expected to bid for match packages that would give them the rights to broadcast a far higher number of fixtures.
The smaller packages available to bidding broadcasters range between 42 and 65 fixtures which would be a huge step up from what Amazon already has the rights to.
It could also see them televise more games than TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) with the longstanding channel currently holding the rights to 52 games per season.
However it is said that TNT and Sky Sports still remain favourites to retain the lion share of fixtures for future seasons.
Amazon may not be the only streaming service that bid for the Premier League broadcasting rights either.
With popular online service DAZN also expected to look at trying to acquire one of the cheaper packages available.
The next round of packages would last for three years and any successful bids would mean rights were purchased for that prolonged period.
FREE BETS – BEST BETTING OFFERS AND BONUSES NEW CUSTOMERS
At present 270 of the Premier League’s 380 annual games are available for broadcast.
And in good news for football fans there isn’t any planned changes for kick off times with the Saturday 12.30pm and 5.30pm, Sunday 2pm and 4.30pm, and Monday or Friday 8pm slots reportedly being maintained.