I've made a webpage which uses the Eleven Sports EPG data to show only the upcoming live matches and the programme durations. Its updated every hour so should catch any late EPG changes:
So I wonder, are all ten La Liga fixtures in the weekend being shown between Eleven Sports 1 and LaLiga TV. The remaining two games are on Monday night, but Eleven’s online schedules don’t appear to go that far.
Yes the Eleven Schedules do not go up to Monday yet but with no 1500 (UK) / 1600 CET La Liga matches this week it appears they will show them all.
There is also Eleven Sports 2 which they have mentioned on their twitter account as showing a few matches from Serie A but there are no schedules for this yet.
So just into the second half of the opening La Liga match, I've dropped into the Facebook Feed via Apple TV, No worse than some NowTV content in quality, some horizontal judder. I'm currently 1 of 269 viewers via this way.
It isn't a legal requirement, and doesn't apply in Wales or Northern Ireland.
However, it is co-ordinated by UEFA on behalf of the FA / SFA, and any of their associations need to comply with it - so it will almost certainly need to be written into contracts with the Italian and Spanish rights holders.
Well, the only sanction UEFA can apply under the Regulations is against an association itself.
Article 5(b) and (d) together provide that an association must ensure that respecting the blocked hours of any other association is a term in any contract for the sale of television rights concluded within its jurisdiction. Now how an association can enforce that against two third parties I’m not sure - in principle it would be a matter for the Italian FA to enforce against the Serie A Football League.
Could theoretically non-European leagues be shown at 3pm then?
I do agree with the principle of the 3pm blackout though as it stands 5pm versus 5.15pm doesn't make much difference. Indeed if the intention is truly for people to travel to games arguably the blackout needs to start much earlier and finish much later.
Ironically I think if it was scrapped you'd probably end up with less Premier League 3pm kick-offs - I could see them moving to something similar to the other leagues with one game on Fridays, four on Saturdays, four on Sundays and one on Mondays.
