Izuchukwu OkosiThe Premier League expects to secure a significant increase on its £5bn domestic TV rights deals when they launch their new tender later in 2023.
A meeting of the 20 top flight clubs on Thursday agreed to allow negotiators to determine the precise nature of the packages to be sold and the number of games to be offered.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelHowever, it has already been agreed as many as 50 more games may be offered, with deals potentially spread over four years rather than the current three with Sky, TNT and Amazon Prime.
This will be the first time the Premier League has put its UK rights up for sale in six years.
The current deal was allowed to be extended on the same terms as the previous one by competition authorities in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Additional games will evidently mean more matches being moved away from the Saturday 15:00 slot.
However, it is though the plan would be to use more of the current slots, particularly on Friday, Saturday and Monday nights rather than regularly screen matches on a Sunday evening as had been feared.
Italy’s Serie A routinely schedules two matches on Friday and Monday evenings, the first of which has a 17:30 kick-off.
The league has already negotiated some six-year overseas TV deals, including with key US broadcaster NBC, who are paying around £2bn to screen matches until 2028.
Domestic deals with Sky Sports, TNT and Amazon Prime run out in 2025.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has already said there are no plans to show matches at 3pm on a Saturday, the timeslot currently subject to a TV blackout in the UK.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
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