Premier League rights 2013-2016

Let's try and break the habit of just using general threads for everything hey!

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/premier-league-statement-030512.html

As fodg09 has posted the rights are now out to tender with an additional 16 matches to be screened from the 2013/14 season, which the Premier League state will mainly come from matches already rescheduled due to the Europa League or police advice, rather than moving more 3pm kick offs.

The rights are split into seven packages - five of 26 games and two of 12 games. The maximum number of games any broadcaster can have is 116 games - so 4x26 + 1x12.

They are yet to announce how these packages will break down - so it remains to be seen whether the packages with 12 games are the first pick games or lower choice games.

See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/02/fa-cup-espn-premier-league
and this:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/sport/football/ross-hair-we-wont-risk-it-all-to-keep-the-premier-tv-contract-7497868.html?origin=internalSearch

It looks like - unless another company comes forward which is unlikely - it will almost certainly be a 3-way fight for the packages. ESPN have done well so I hope they keep some matches, but they as seen above they have said that they don't have deep enough pockets to compete too much.

Al Jazeera having some rights would be interesting but I wonder what they'd do if they only got a small handful of matches, would they be on the march for more rights to fill a whole channel like ESPN had to

I'm surprised Al-Jazeera haven't gone for games before, actually I could see them launch a Sports Channel in the future if they get rights for the games.

I imagine if AJ were to win some rights they would use the 'BeIN Sport' brand, which is being introduced in France and the U.S this Summer.

The 15 or so month gap between the rights being awarded and the contract kicking in would certainly give them a reasonable amount of time to set up operations in the UK - certainly more time than they have had to prepare in France and the U.S.

To be fair I think ESPN were magnificent in setting up their main channel - in just under 2 months! I expect IF ESPN get 2x26 and 1x12 then I can see them setting up an ESPN2, or at most utilising ESPN Classic as an overspill channel for live sport.

An awful lot depends on the content of the packages, as has been already mentioned. Financial Fair Play might have an impact too, I can see each package content being more even than before. Clubs will not want to be seen to be attacting too much income for the sport. I can see UEFA wanting to know detail and splitting the income for each package on the basis of clubs covered and not on a whole league basis.

The joker, might be a FTA bid from either ITV, Channel Four or Channel Five seriously trying for one of the two smaller packs.

I don't know if 12 games would be worthwhile for a terrestrial broadcaster unless they also have the highlights. 23-26 games wouldn't be so bad as that's virtually a weekly commitment and I think that would be sufficient to enable any channel to be happy to show them with another channel (almost certainly the BBC) having the highlights - though it's obviously costly, though I do think the last Saturday night and Monday night packages went for less than the BBC paid for MOTD rights.

... am wondering whether with more fixtures available that the FA might consider competing televisied matches available live simultaneously on different channels. .