FOR ALL THE LIVE TV GAMES CONFIRMED FOR THE 2014-15 SEASON SEE HERE
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| Sky Sports' pundits team |
This season is the second of a three-year contract the Premier League has with Sky Sports and BT Sport. Sky will again show 116 live games (mainly in the 5.30pm Saturday, 1.30pm and 4pm Sunday, and 8pm Monday slots) with BT screening 38 games again (mainly in the 12.45pm Saturday slot with some midweeks as well)
* So how do they decide who gets what games, as presumably they all want the best matches?
Of course, but the live rights are split into a number of packages each containing a set of picks ie so many first picks, second picks, third picks etc.
Sky has 20 first picks and BT 18 first picks, but crucially it's thought Sky's deal lets them decide which weekends they wish to use their first picks in. The games are picked in blocks - with the first set of fixtures until the end of November.
So last season Sky are thought to have held back some of their 'first picks' for the title run-in - that's why Sky had a hugely strong end to the season with all the crucial games and BT had the lesser games at that stage of the season.
Equally that meant BT had some big-hitting matches in the middle of the season.
* Why do Sky and BT end up picking some of the less attractive fixtures while not selecting some bigger games available to them?
Basically because they have to. The Premier League contract stipulates that each team has to be screened a minimum and maximum number of times.
This makes the picking system hugely complicated for broadcasters especially when they are trying to ensure they 'stage-manage' the run-in so they get the crucial title games - if they get it wrong there's a danger they 'max-out' on the number of times they've shown a team and could miss a crucial title-deciding fixture.
The minimum and maximum quotas needed for each team to be screened explains why some weekends you may end up with a not so Super Sunday of Hull v Stoke (with no disrespect to those teams' fans!)
* Can anything else influence the TV picks?
Yes, the police may object to a certain kick-off time and teams' involvement in Europe or other cup competitions may also have an impact as to whether a game is screened or moved to a certain time slot.
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| Jose Mourinho is to work with BT Sport for the next three seasons. |