Saturday night matches and full midweek rounds in new Premier League TV plans


Saturday night 7.45pm kick-offs and every game from midweek rounds will be screened live as part of the Premier League's next television rights deal.

The league has invited bidders to secure the live rights for the 2019-22 seasons with more live games from the competition than ever before being screened. The new deals will see 200 live games screened a season, up from the current 168.

It means just 180 of the 380 Premier League fixture each season will kick-off in their originally scheduled slot.

Up to eight Saturday 7.45pm matches will be screened each season while entire midweek rounds will be shown. Viewers would be able to choose which midweek Premier League games they want to see via the red button/online, similar to the system Sky used to have and BT Sport currently use for showing the Champions League.

FULL BREAKDOWN OF LIVE MATCHES FOR 2019-22 SEASONS
Number of games per season, source: Daily Telegraph
> Saturday 12.30pm kick-offs (32 matches)
> Saturday 5.30pm kick-offs (32 matches)
> Saturday 7.45pm kick-offs (8 matches)
> Sunday 2pm kick-offs (32 matches)
> Sunday 4.30pm kick-offs (32 matches)
> Monday 8pm/Friday night 7.30pm to 8pm kick-offs (24 matches)
> All 20 matches from one bank holiday and midweek fixture round
> All 20 matches from two midweek fixture rounds

The above games are being made available as part of different packages broadcasters can bid for with no one bidder being able to win the rights to more than 148 games per season.
It's not clear yet which packages contain the sought-after 'first-pick matches'.

The other change for the new set of rights is a slight change in kick-off times for Sunday matches from 1.30pm to 2pm and 4pm to 4.30pm.

Sky and BT, the current rights holders, could face competition from the likes of Apple, Amazon and Facebook although there is speculation the tech giants may experiment with showing other live sport before it makes a massive outlay on Premier League rights.

Sky currently hold the rights to 126 games a season (including the most 'first picks') while BT have 42.

2017-18 LIVE FOOTBALL ON TV
> Premier League LIVE TV games HERE
> EFL LIVE TV games HERE
SPFL LIVE TV games HERE
> FA Cup LIVE TV games HERE 
> Champions League LIVE TV games HERE
> Europa League LIVE TV games HERE
> National League LIVE TV games HERE