ENGLAND
\nAmazon Prime will show live Premier League matches from 2019 in the UK. The technology giant has bought a football package that will give it exclusive TV — or in this case, streaming — rights for 20 games per season, from 2019\/20 to 2021\/22. These cover some midweek fixtures in early December, and the games taking place over the Bank Holiday (Boxing Day). Earlier this year, the Premier League announced that it had sold five out of seven TV packages in the UK. BT bought one bundle, worth 32 games, while Sky secured four, representing 128 matches. Today, the league confirmed that Amazon and BT have secured the final two TV packages.
\nLike Amazon, BT\u2019s final TV package comes with 20 live games. That brings the broadcaster\u2019s total to 52 fixtures per season \u2014 up from 42 under its current contract \u2014 from 2019\/20. Volume, of course, isn\u2019t everything. Broadcasters want the best games, featuring the most popular teams, to entice new subscribers. The packages sold in February are for weekend games, and come with a medley of first, second, third, fourth and fifth \u201cpicks.\u201d The final two announced today, meanwhile, have no such system \u2014 Amazon and BT will simply be given a selection of mid-week fixtures to air.
\nFor Amazon, though, it\u2019s a start. Premier League TV rights are ludicrously expensive to secure \u2014 even one match package is no cheap investment.
\nThe fixtures will join the 37 ATP tennis events that Amazon acquired in November last year. That\u2019s on top of the company\u2019s documentary splurge, which includes plenty of American football and a still-in-development series on Manchester City FC. These, however, are in direct competition with Netflix, which has already produced its own premium soccer and American football series. Live sports, though, are a big differentiator from its streaming rival, and a big value-add for Prime Video in the UK.
\nAnd if you\u2019re a football fan? It\u2019s good news if you already own Prime, otherwise you\u2019ll need three subscriptions to watch every Premier League match soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ENGLAND Amazon Prime will show live Premier League matches from 2019 in the UK. The technology giant has bought a football package that will give it exclusive TV — or in this case, streaming — rights for 20 games per season, from 2019\/20 to 2021\/22. These cover some midweek fixtures in early December, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n