The Premier League have confirmed that there will be around 270 matches shown live on television from the start of the 2025/26 season, 70 more than the current package
The Premier League will make around 270 matches available for broadcast
The 3pm Saturday afternoon blackout will stay in place from the 2025/26 season, despite the Premier League making around 70 more matches available for live broadcast.
England’s top-flight is set to the number of games shown live from 200 to 270 per campaign in its next rights cycle. The current round includes matches across seven packages, but the league is looking to offer more matches across just five packages in the next cycle.
A four-year deal, instead of the three-year contract, has been mooted from 2025/26 to the end of the 2028/29 season. The league’s Invitation To Tender (ITT) process confirmed the news on Wednesday evening, with the 3pm blackout to stay put, although every 2pm Sunday kick-off will be televised.
It will include matches staged at that time due to competing in European competitions on Thursday. This season, Brighton, Liverpool, West Ham and Aston Villa have been forced to play matches on a Sunday after playing in either the Europa League or the Europa Conference League three days prior.
For example, Villa’s trip to Wolves and West Ham’s home game against Newcastle were not televised at 2pm on Sunday, October 7. But, from the 2025/26 season, those types of matches would be broadcast live on TV. Brighton’s clash with Liverpool was Sky Sports’ selected 2pm kick-off on that day.
In the latest package, five-midweek rounds of Premier League action will be included in the deal, rather than the original four. The Saturday 12:30pm and 5:30pm slots will stay in place, as will the 8pm slot on Friday and Monday evenings.
The 3pm Premier League blackout will stay in place (
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The ITT states that a minimum of two broadcasters will be able to hold the live rights. This will be the first time the Premier League has been through a tender process for its rights since 2016. That is because the current deal, which runs to the 2024-25 season, was a rollover of the previous one after the Government granted an exclusion order amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sky is the current owner of four packages (128 matches per season), TNT two packages (52 matches) and Amazon one (20 matches). The reduction in the number of packages is sure to make competition fierce, with streaming platform DAZN understood to be one of the parties interested in entering the market.
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The tender process will be overseen by an independent monitoring trustee. The league said each package will contain between 42 and 65 games. The current deal is reported to be worth £4.8billion to the league and its clubs over the three-year cycle.
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