Premier League ‘discussing plans to DITCH Sky Sports and BT Sport and show games on OWN platform’

Premier League bosses are reportedly ‘discussing’ future options to move away from Sky Sports and BT Sport in a bid to ‘cut out the middle man’. 

According to The Mirror, it seems ‘likely that there will be just one more multi partner deal’ before the Premier League take things in-house and run broadcasting operations themselves. 

That will be a massive blow for Sky Sports, who have operated as the main broadcaster for the league’s football coverage since the Comcast-owned television giant joined forces with the league after its inception in 1992. 

In fact, Sky have played a large part of the success of the English top-flight, with other agencies like BT Sport and Amazon Prime Sport also showing matches in recent years. 

It comes at a time when television rights for top-flight football are becoming a very lucrative commodity, withe the EFL television rights recently doubling in value to over £200million.   

The report called the move a ‘license to print money for the Premier League’ suggesting that the move will give them a lot more power over when they can show games as well as control over the revenues they receive from those broadcasts. 

That could also help to increase the funds going to clubs in the top-flight, with less going to external broadcasters.

The news comes as DAZN, who already fork out £747m for the rights to show Serie A, are reportedly set to rival Sky, Amazon and BT to gain the rights to show the Premier League on their platform.

That could mean fans will have to fork out for yet another streaming service, with some supporters, who want to watch football across all three current rights holders, currently paying upwards of £100-per-month. 

That is a hefty expense, especially in today’s climate, yet, should the Premier League ‘cut out those middle men’ that could help to limit the costs fans are paying to these additional broadcasters, with viewers potentially needing to worry about just one subscription to the Premier League’s broadcast service. 

That will also be a better deal for fans going to the game, with the report suggesting that it could reduce the amount of anti-social kick off times scheduled by television broadcasters. 

That comes a year after Sportsmail’s campaign against late football kick-off times, where it was argued that broadcasters needed to start looking after fans instead of charging them extortionate fees to watch games. 

More recently, television companies may be set to make some strides in the right direction, with reports suggesting that the FA are considering dropping 3pm blackouts for FA Cup fixtures in the future.  

While the potential move is some way off, it’s clear that many fans are against having to use multiple subscription services to watch their games, with new broadcasters like Viaplay recently taking over the rights to show Scottish Premier League matches and LaLiga games too. 

Speaking on the issue, Football Supporters Association chief executive Kevin Miles agreed that fans were starting to feel the strain of paying for multiple subscription providers to watch games, especially in a cost of living crisis. 

‘There’s no question that supporters are increasingly feeling the financial strain,’ Miles said. 

‘We’re not untouched by the general cost of living crisis but the more platforms there are, the more subscriptions we have to find.

‘For those fans who want to watch everyone of the club’s televised games the costs are really starting to mount.’