Premier League: A minimum 190 games to be televised live from 2019-2020

Premier League: A minimum 190 games to be televised live from 2019-2020

By Richard Conway
BBC Radio 5 live sports news correspondent

A minimum of 190 Premier League games will be televised live in Britain from start of the 2019-20 season.

Premier League chairmen voted unanimously for the package, with the rights set to go out to auction before Christmas.

A new package of Saturday night games is likely to be offered to broadcasters, along with more midweek and Bank Holiday matches.

There will be a minimum of 22 additional live games on offer.

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

That three-season agreement represented a 70% increase on the previous £3bn deal and involved 168 games being shown each season at an average cost to the broadcasters of £10.2m per match.

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.

Analysis: Strictly v Saturday night football?

Richard Conway, 5 live sports news correspondent:

The next Premier League deal will likely herald an even greater battle for the remote control in households across the country.

That's because of the looming Saturday night prime-time clash between live top-flight football and big shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor.

But where will fans watch? Sky and BT will without doubt be in the mix once again for the bundles of games on offer.

The other X Factor in this tender process could be the big US tech companies such as Amazon and Apple. They are increasingly showing an appetite for live sports rights, as demonstrated by Amazon's recent deal for US Open tennis.

The industry speculation is that this tender process may have come too soon for the internet giants to make any major splash. It could, however, provide a taste for what lies ahead for both the Premier League and supporters.