No Premier Leage

[Sam594]

Hello,  I've just returned back to the UK, did my research and selected EE so that i could watch Premier /league football games.  Iwas told in an EE shop to get broadband + a TnT / Discovery + bundle to access all the games - i've siunce found out you can't and that EPL games are screened on 3 different service providers....Can this even be true? legal? and does anyone have advice about what to do? Thanks! 

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

This is an issue of who holds the broadcasting rights for particular sports & competitions. Football is not my sport at all, but from recollection the Premier League is currently split between Sky & TNT, with Sky holding by far the most dominant bulk. The rest of English football I believe is Sky-held.

Check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_the_United_Kingdom which I've usually found is fairly accurate.

[zulu17]

Hi @bristolian 

The Premier League live TV rights have effectively been divided into typical 5 or 6 packages which broadcasters have been able to bid seperately on. Typically two or three different broadcasters end up winning one or more packages. The last auction was held in  December 2023  and covers four seasons from 2025/6 season. Historically the reason  the Premier League split the rights up was as a result of the EU Commission agreement  with the Premier League from 2005 as reported by the BBC at the time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4444684.stm

So currently Sky has the majority (4 packages of live games) , TNT has one package of live games.  So you would need a TNT Sports (or discovery+ Sports)  and  Sky Sports (or Now Sports) subscriptions or included in a TV package to see all the available Pemier League live games.

The Saturday 3pm Premier League games are normally not broadcast live. here  This is a UEFA restriction that the FA have invoked.  details at

https://www.uefa.com/about/how-we-work/uefa-administration/marketing/blocked-broadcasting-hours/

[zulu17]

sorry my explanation should have bee directed to @Sam594