English football on television has been broadcast since 1938. Since the establishment of the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

in 1992,

English football Association football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association f ...

has become a very lucrative industry. As of the 2013-14 season, domestic television rights for the 20-team Premier League are worth £1 billion a year. The league generates €2.2 billion per year in domestic and international television rights.

Contracts

Early history

Early years

The BBC started its television service in 1936, although it was nearly a year before the very first televised match of football was screened – a specially-arranged

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

between

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostl ...

and

Arsenal Reserves Arsenal Football Club Academy is the youth system of Arsenal Football Club based in Hale End, London, England. It is often referred to as Hale End eponymously by the club, sports media, and fans. The academy teams play in the Professional Dev ...

Highbury Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was sit ...

on 16 September 1937. This was followed by the first televised international match, between

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

on 9 April 1938, and the first televised

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

final followed soon after, on 30 April the same year, between

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. Th ...

and

Preston North End Preston North End Football Club, commonly referred to as Preston, North End or PNE, is a professional football club in Preston, Lancashire, England, who currently play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English football league syste ...

. On 19 October 1946, the first live televised football match was broadcast by the BBC from Barnet's home ground Underhill. Twenty minutes of the game against fellow amateur side

Wealdstone Wealdstone () is a district located in the centre of the London Borough of Harrow, England. It is located just north of Harrow town centre and is south of Harrow Weald, west of Belmont and Kenton, and east of Headstone. The area accommodates ...

in the

Athenian League The Athenian League was an English amateur football league for clubs in and around London. The league was originally to be called the Corinthian League,Athenian Football League minutes 1912-1921 (National Football Museum, Preston). but this nam ...

were televised in the first half and thirty five minutes of the second half before it became too dark. However, coverage of football television did not expand and for the next two decades the only matches screened were

FA Cup final The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official atten ...

s and the odd England ''v.'' Scotland match. The first FA Cup tie other than the final to be shown was a fifth round match between

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

and

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

on 8 February 1947, but matches were sparing and only games in London could be broadcast, for technical reasons.

The dawn of regular coverage

The advent of floodlighting led to the creation of the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

, designed as a midweek cup competition for the champions of European nations, in 1955. The newly formed British television station ITV saw televised football as an ideal way of gaining a share of the audience from their only rival broadcaster, the BBC. The BBC meanwhile, started showing brief highlights of matches (with a maximum of five minutes) on its Saturday-night '' Sports Special'' programme from 10 September 1955, until its cancellation in 1963. The first games featured were both from Division One – Luton Town v Newcastle United and Charlton Athletic v Everton.

Kenneth Wolstenholme Kenneth Wolstenholme, DFC & Bar (17 July 1920 – 25 March 2002) was an English football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final; in the closing minu ...

and

Cliff Michelmore Arthur Clifford Michelmore (11 December 1919 – 16 March 2016) was an English television presenter and producer. He is best known for the BBC television programme ''Tonight'', which he presented from 1957 to 1965. He also hosted the BBC's tel ...

were the commentators. An early attempt at live league football was made in 1960–61, when ITV agreed a deal worth £150,000 with the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

to screen 26 matches; the very first live league match was on Saturday 10 September 1960 between

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre rivers, and is ...

and

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pik ...

Bloomfield Road Bloomfield Road is a single-tier football stadium in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901. It is the third stadium in the club's existence, the previous two being Raikes Hall Gardens and the At ...

. The match kicked off at 6:50 pm with live coverage starting at 7:30 under the title ''The Big Game''. A major blow to the TV moguls was the absence of big box-office draw

Stanley Matthews Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while sti ...

through injury, and the game ended 1–0 to Bolton in front of a half-empty stadium. However, ITV withdrew from the deal after first

and then

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

refused them permission to shoot at their matches against

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East En ...

and

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...

respectively, and the Football League demanded a dramatic increase in player appearance payments. Both matches received highlights coverage from the BBC on ''Sports Special'' instead. However, ITV moved again into football, albeit tentatively, in 1962 when

Anglia Television ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated b ...

launched ''Match of the Week'', which showed highlights of matches from around

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. The first match shown was

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn professio ...

's 3–2 defeat at the hands of

Wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

Portman Road Portman Road is a football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, which has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly internation ...

on 22 September 1962.

Tyne Tees Television ITV Tyne Tees, previously known as Tyne Tees, Channel 3 North East and Tyne Tees Television, is the ITV television franchise for North East England and parts of North Yorkshire. Tyne Tees launched on 15 January 1959 from studios at a converte ...

in the North East of England began broadcasting local matches soon after under the title ''Shoot''. League football was soon to gain a nationwide audience once more. In 1964, the BBC introduced ''

Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary ...

'' - originally shown on BBC2 and intended to train BBC cameramen for the forthcoming

1966 World Cup The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 July to 30 July 1966. The England national football team defeated West Germany 4-2 in the ...

. The first match was Liverpool's 3–2 victory over Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August, and the estimated audience of 20,000 was considerably less than the number of paying customers at the ground. At the time BBC2 could only be received in the London area, although by the end of ''

''s first season it could be sampled in the Midlands. The programme transferred to BBC1 in the wake of England's 1966 World Cup win and at last could be received by television viewers across the UK.

The World Cup

There was live coverage of

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

football on UK screens in

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

and

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

- however only selected matches were available. In 1954,

provided commentary on the few televised matches for BBC from

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

- including the quarter-final between

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. A

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...

over the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

cut off the picture and many irate viewers wrote in to complain that the BBC had pulled the plug. The 1958 tournament in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

saw a greater range of matches thanks to the new Eurovision Network; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the

Scottish FA The Scottish Football Association (also known as the SFA and the Scottish FA; sco, Scots Fitba Association; Scottish Gaelic: ''Comann Ball-coise na h-Alba'') is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for ...

, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches might be hit. The

1962 World Cup The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held from 30 May to 17 June 1962 in Chile. The qualification rounds took place bet ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

was covered in delayed form by the BBC with film having to be carried by air via the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

back to Britain. Matches were generally seen three days after they were played, though every match was covered by the BBC with commentary. With intercontinental communications satellites in their infancy and videotape a new advance, the first tournament to gain widespread international live coverage was the 1966 tournament, which was held in England. The tournament, which

won, increased the popularity of the sport. With more football viewers than ever, ''Match of the Day'' thrived – switching from

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

to reach a wider audience. ITV's regional coverage had also expanded during this period with London weekend company ATV launching ''Star Soccer'' in October 1965,

Southern Television Southern Television was the ITV broadcasting licence holder for the South and South-East of England from 30 August 1958 to 31 December 1981. The company was launched as 'Southern Television Limited' and the title 'Southern Television' was co ...

's ''Southern Soccer'' and ABC's ''World of Soccer'' also began to appear regularly in the ''

TV Times ''TV Times'' is a British television listings magazine published by Future plc. It was originally published by Independent Television Publications, owned by the participating ITV companies. The magazine was acquired by IPC Media in 1989, which ...

'' Sunday schedules.

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

's ''

The Big Match ''The Big Match'' was a British football television programme, screened on ITV between 1968 and 1992. ''The Big Match'' originally launched on London Weekend Television (LWT) – the ITV regional station that served London and the Home Counties ...

'' started in 1968, and eventually the entire ITV network's football coverage would be broadcast under its title.

Rise of live League coverage

The demand for football grew through the 1970s and early 1980s, and the decision to start screening live league matches was almost inevitable; a deal was struck for the start of the 1983-84 season and the first live league match since 1960 was screened on ITV, between

and Nottingham Forest, on 2 October 1983. Spurs would also feature in the BBC's first live league match at

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

on a Friday night a few weeks later. By the late 1980s the value of live TV coverage had rocketed; while a two-year contract for rights in 1983 had cost just £5.2m, the four-year contract exclusively landed by ITV in 1988 cost £44m, a fourfold increase per year. There was now a situation where live football was on TV almost every Sunday afternoon from about November onwards, as ITV screened top-flight football most weeks and the BBC had the rights to the

that occupied other weekends. With top-flight football proving particularly lucrative, in 1992 the clubs of the

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

voted to quit the league ''en masse'' and set up their own league, the

. They eventually opted to agree a deal with

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

rather than ITV or the BBC, meaning leading live top-flight football was no longer available on

terrestrial television Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an ante ...

. ITV continued to show second tier matches on a regional basis for the next four seasons until they also transferred to Sky Sports, apart from one season (2001–02) when they were shown on its unsuccessful

ITV Digital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners ...

platform.

Premier League era

Football on television today

Coverage of Premier League now dominates football on English television, especially in financial terms; the contracts agreed between the league and broadcasters

BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

in 1992 and 1997 were worth £191.5m and £670m respectively. Sky were also able to show more live games than previously, with several games live on many matchdays (originally Sundays and Mondays). However, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

objected to what it saw as a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

on television rights and demanded the 2007 contract be split into separate packages of 23 games; eventually Sky won four of the six available packages, with the other two were taken by

Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previ ...

. Setanta went bankrupt in 2009 with its packages taken over by

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. From 2010/11, Sky have five packages and ESPN one. The top tier still has a presence on terrestrial television in highlights form on ''

''. From the 2009/10 season, live coverage of the

returned to British terrestrial television for the first time since 2001 with the BBC securing 10 live Championship (second tier) games per season, as well as Football League highlights after ''Match of the Day''. Sky also showed live lower league football while Setanta also showed large numbers of

Conference National The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-professi ...

games before the channels demise. There is also extensive coverage of numerous Cup competitions. Every match in the Champions League (formerly European Cup) and the Europa League is available on BT Sport.

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...

and the BBC broadcast the

while Sky show the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

. And the

Football League Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL ...

gets live television exposure on Sky Sports.

Premier League satellite decoder case

The

holds an exclusive contract with broadcasters

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

. Some

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

s install foreign

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...

decoders hardware to enable customers to watch live Premier League games in their establishment. The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that EU law on the free movement of goods should be applied to the decoder cards. In 2007 Karen Murphy, a Portsmouth publican, was convicted under s297(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), in that on two occasions she: ‘… dishonestly received a programme included in a broadcasting service provided from a place in the United Kingdom with intent to avoid payment of any charge applicable to the reception of the programme.' In 2012, the European Court ruled that blocking foreign satellite TV breached EU single market rules. The English high court quashed Mrs Murphy's convictions.

Worldwide coverage

Promoted as "The Greatest Show on Earth", the Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people;. The Premier League's production arm, Premier League Productions, is operated by IMG Productions and is responsible for producing all content for its international television partners.

United States

In the United States, coverage for most of the 2000s and early 2010s was shared between

Fox Soccer Fox Soccer (formerly Fox Soccer Channel & Fox Sports World before that) was an American television specialty channel specializing in soccer, owned by Fox Corporation, which operated from 1997 to 2013. It formerly broadcast rugby and Australia ...

Fox Soccer Plus Fox Soccer Plus (formerly Setanta Sports) is an American sports channel dedicated to soccer and rugby league. Launched in 2005 by the Irish sports broadcaster Setanta Sports to offer live and tape-delayed mainstream sports events in the United ...

and

, with Fox Deportes and

ESPN Deportes ESPN Deportes (, ''ESPN Sports'') is an American multinational Spanish-language pay television sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications ( ...

holding Spanish language rights.

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its ...

(primarily through

NBCSN NBCSN was an American sports television channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which was dedicated to programming prim ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk s ...

, and

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madi ...

) replaced ESPN and Fox Soccer as the exclusive broadcaster of the league in the US (in both English and Spanish;

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...

and

NBC Universo Universo is an American pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises subsidiary of NBCUniversal. The network serves as a companion cable channel to the NBCUniversal's flagship broadcast television network NBC and, to som ...

now carry Spanish-language coverage) beginning in the 2013–14 season, as the result of a new three-year, $250 million USD deal with the league, including 20 matches that start at 5:30pm UK time on Saturdays free-to-air on the main

network (12:30pm American Eastern). Other games are carried through gametime-only channels known as "Premier League Extra Time", and all games are carried through NBC Sports' website and the NBC Sports mobile app with

TV Everywhere TV Everywhere (also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand) refers to a type of subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" themse ...

authentication, with

carrying matches in lieu of NBCSN during the

2014 Winter Olympics , ''Zharkie. Zimnie. Tvoi'') , nations = 88 , events = 98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , athletes = 2,873 , opening = 7 February 2014 , closing = 23 February 2014 , opened_by = President Vladimir Putin , cauldron = , stadium = Fisht Olympi ...

and

2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

. Beginning with the 2017–18 season, all matches not shown on the linear TV channels will be available on Premier League Pass, a subscription service hosted by NBC Sports Gold. Survival Sunday coverage (under the banner ''Championship Sunday'') will be carried on the last match day by ten NBCUniversal networks, along with Telemundo and mun2.

properties air the

from 2018/19 season through subscription service hosted by

ESPN+ ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The c ...

. On 10 August 2015 NBC Sports announced it had reached a six-year extension with the Premier League to broadcast the football league through the 2021–22 season. The value of the licensing deal rose by 100% with the deal estimated to be worth $1 billion (£640 million); double the previous value. Traditionally a three-year deal, NBC Sports were able to double that length, as Premier League viewership on NBC and NBCSN averaged a record 479,000 viewers in the 2014-15 season — up 9% from the record NBC Sports set during its debut covering the Premier League in 2013–14 (438,000 viewers), and up 118% from 2012–13, when coverage still aired on

and

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

(220,000 viewers). Along with improved ratings, NBC Sports has been widely praised for its coverage of the Premier League, while

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

and ESPN have been criticized for neglecting coverage, in favour of other major U.S. sports they also cover.

Asia

The Premier League is particularly popular in Asia, where it is the most widely distributed sports programme. In India, the matches are broadcast live on Star Sports. Premier League broadcasts began in India in August 1996. Liverpool's 2–0 victory over Arsenal was the first Monday night game broadcast. In China, data from 2003 suggested that matches were attracting television audiences between 100 million and 360 million, more than any other foreign sport. In 2012, Chinese rights were awarded to Super Sports in a six-year agreement that began in the 2013/14 season. Due to its popularity in Asia, the league has held four pre-season tournaments there, the only Premier League affiliated tournaments ever to have been held outside England. The

Premier League Asia Trophy The Premier League Asia Trophy (formerly the FA Premier League Asia Cup) is a biennial pre-season association football friendly tournament in Asia. The two-day competition was inaugurated in 2003 and is "the only Premier League-affiliated comp ...

has been played in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China and involves three Premier League clubs playing against a prominent team from the host nation, often the national side.

Other

In Canada,

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was ...

owned the Premier League rights for three years from the 2010–11 season. Select games (particularly those aired by ESPN) were sub-licensed to TSN. Starting in the 2013–14 season until 2018–19 season, the matches are divided between Sportsnet and TSN: some of TSN's broadcasts utilize the NBC Sports feed rather than the primary world feed. Sportsnet holds rights to the FA Cup, although all but the finals are televised on its subscription service Sportsnet World. However, from 2019 to 2020 season,

DAZN DAZN ( "da zone") is a global sports entertainment platform. Different to traditional linear and satellite broadcasting, DAZN is an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service meaning that it is delivered directly to viewers via the internet. The ...

announced that it had acquired Canadian rights to the

, replacing

and TSN, under a three-year deal. In Australia,

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singte ...

broadcasts all of the season's 380 matches live, on-demand replays and highlights, through monthly subscription. As of 2019/2020 season there will no longer be a FTA broadcaster. Figures from UK tourism body VisitBritain suggest that 750,000 visitors to Britain attended a Premier League match in 2010, spending a total £595 million and an average of £766. Visitors from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

, where the first live football match from England was aired in 1969, are most likely to come to watch Premier League football, with one in 13 Norwegian tourists travelling specifically to attend matches. Second on the list is the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (Middle East, The Middle East). It is ...

. For those visiting family and friends, the most likely to watch a football match are from Japan, China and Australia.

Kick-off times

Premier League

Each weekend as many as six Premier League matches will be moved to be shown on

. The main kick-off times for TV matches are 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Sundays, and 8 p.m. on Mondays. For up to 10 matches each season, there is also a Friday night 8 p.m. TV slot. Other matches may also be moved to Sunday, usually because one of the teams involved played in a

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. ...

fixture the preceding Thursday. This can sometimes result in midday, 2:15 p.m., and 4:30 p.m. Sunday kick-offs, with the 12:00 game sometimes being broadcast on BT Sport. The 2:15 p.m. game will sometimes kick off at 2 pm. Sky Sports will almost always show a Saturday 5:30 p.m. as well as a Sunday 4:30 p.m. game live, typically following a Sunday 2 p.m. or 2:15 p.m. kick off as part of a ''Super Sunday'' double-bill. Two matches per midweek round will also be picked for live broadcast by BT Sport on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at either 7:30 p.m. or 8:15 pm. The only two exceptional cases are the opening midweek round and Boxing Day where all 10 games from each round are shown by Amazon Prime Video. BT Sport broadcasts live Premier League games at 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Each broadcaster is subjected to restrictions on the number of times they can show each team live per season to ensure fair distribution of TV revenue. Similarly, each team must appear at least once in each TV slot. During the COVID-19 pandemic all Premier League fixtures are being broadcast. Kick off times at the weekends include Fridays 6pm & 8pm, Saturday 12:30pm, 3pm, 5:30pm & 8:00pm, Sunday 12pm, 2pm, 4:30pm & 7:15pm, and Mondays 6pm & 8pm. Not all times slots are always used and sometimes games are broadcast simultaneously. Additionally some games are being scheduled on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays, with kick off at either 6pm or 8:15pm. Saturday 12:30pm games are broadcast on BT Sport. Saturday 5:30pm, Sunday 2pm and 4:30pm, & Monday 8pm games are broadcast on Sky Sports. Other games are broadcast by either Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime or BBC sport.

English Football League

All televised EFL games are broadcast on Sky Sports, with 2 games (usually Championship) per weekend broadcast at 7:45 p.m. on a Friday and 12:30 p.m. on a Saturday. Other games may be additionally scheduled at different times, such as Noon on a Sunday or, very occasionally, 7:45 p.m. on a Monday.

3pm "blackout"

In the 1960s,

Burnley F.C. Burnley Football Club () is an English association football club based in Burnley, Lancashire, that competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football, following relegation from the 2021–22 Premier League. Founded on 18 ...

chairman Bob Lord successfully convinced fellow

chairmen that televised matches on a Saturday afternoon would have a negative effect on the attendances of other football league games that were not being televised and as a result reduce their financial income. As a result,

the FA The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world an ...

and

do not permit English matches to be televised live between 2:45pm and 5:15pm on a Saturday within the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Until recently, the FA Cup Final was an exception and was broadcast at 3pm on a Saturday in May; however, the 2012 FA Cup Final was moved to 5:15pm. Foreign matches shown in the United Kingdom are also affected by the blackout; Eleven Sports do not broadcast the first 15 minutes of Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

matches which kick off at 5pm UK time. In February 2011, Advocate General Kokott of the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ, french: Cour de Justice européenne), formally just the Court of Justice, is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European U ...

opined that the "closed periods" did not encourage match attendance at other league games. To avoid this blackout, the last day of the Premier League, when all ten games must kick off simultaneously, is always played on a Sunday. The final round of fixtures from the Championship and League 1 are also scheduled away from 3pm on a Saturday in order to broadcast one or more games live, whilst League 2 kicks off at 3pm on a Saturday. Live radio broadcasts are permitted, both nationally and locally; these may be simulcast on the internet, depending on the broadcaster. Viewers outside the UK can still watch these games live on foreign broadcasters, thus creating somewhat of a

grey market A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term " parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market pr ...

within the UK with viewers able to subscribe to or watch streams of foreign channels. The Premier League and Sky maintain that, while grey market viewing of games is not illegal on the part of the viewer, it is illegal for anyone (such as a

) to make such services openly available. This has in the past led to heavy fines for public houses in the United Kingdom which have shown 3pm games in their establishments. More recently, the legality of such fines has been disputed, and a number of Crown Court cases have been reported in which publicans successfully challenged the Premier League's position. In recent years,

have shown a 3pm game in full, on tape delay via their ''Game of the Day'' show, with extended highlights of the other 3pm games shown after, on ''Match Choice''. On 20 June 2020,

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

and

played the first Saturday 3pm Premier League game to be shown live on television in the UK, as part of 'Project Restart' during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, which prohibited spectators from attending matches. The 3pm blackout was not observed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Premier League games kicking off at this time being broadcast throughout the 2020–21 season and so was the first time all 380 matches were broadcast live in the UK. It returned and was fully observed for the 2021–22 season. When

Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains the Portugal national team. He is currently a free agent. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pl ...

returned to

on deadline day of the summer 2021 transfer window, some demanded the 3pm blackout be removed altogether as they thought it was unfair they weren't allowed to watch his second debut as it would be taking place during a 3pm match. Others instead continued to support the black out due to its effects in protecting lower league football.The Sports Man: "Why English Football's 3PM Blackout Is Vital, Even If We Miss Ronaldo's Return"
/ref>

Notes

References

*Horrie, Chris (2002). ''Premiership'', Pocket Books,
Fact Sheet 8: British Football on Television
(Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, University of Leicester, 2002)

(History of Football on TV)
Live Football On TV Today UKWherestheMatch.com - Live Football TV guide UK
{{Association football on television

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...