The 3pm game on Sundays could be eliminated during the upcoming Premier League TV rights cycle. Sunday games are at 6:30 p.m. and are blackout days on Saturday.
The current Premier League broadcast agreement is set to expire in 2025, and negotiations over who will handle the next cycle will start soon. This cycle is expected to bring in even more money for clubs because it could add 50 more matches to the schedule and represents the first increase in the price of domestic rights since 2016.
The most recent agreement was renewed locally in 2021, amid the height of the pandemic and the uncertainty it caused, for a sum of about £5 billion. For the current cycle, international rights exceeded domestic ones for the first time, raising the total pot to more than £10 billion. These rights are also anticipated to rise, with Premier League clubs in line for a significant payout starting in 2025 as the bubble continues to grow.
But it’s sure to have an impact on the audience. According to The Telegraph, the suggestions for the upcoming cycle may result in as many as four games being televised on a Sunday with a late kick off at 6.30pm, which would already increase the travel time for spectators.
According to the source, there has been campaigning for the English game’s 3 p.m. blackout to be lifted so that Women’s Super League matches could be broadcast, since some people believe the existing laws will allow for the growth of illicit streaming.
The Premier League is currently only allowed to sell its broadcasting rights on a three-year basis, but according to the Telegraph, the Government has granted permission to extend that to four years. This would give the League more negotiating power with broadcasters as three-year deals are considered to be a high-risk strategy given the large sums of money needed to cover the games and the possibility of losing the rights soon after acquiring them.
