Broadcasters reveal opening live Premier League games
July 3, 2015
By Colin Mann
Sky and BT Sport, the two UK licensed Premier League broadcasters, have announced their respective first batches of live games.
Premier League champions Chelsea will begin their title defence exclusively live on Sky Sports, the first of 24 live matches from the opening seven rounds of the season. Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool will also be shown live by Sky Sports on the opening weekend.
Sky Sports will show every team live by the end of September and the schedule features 14 matches involving last season’s top four, plus huge head-to-heads including Manchester City v Chelsea, Arsenal v Liverpool and Manchester United v Liverpool. The live matches are the first of 116 Barclays Premier League fixtures to be shown exclusively live on Sky Sports
Sky Sports Managing Director Barney Francis said: “Sky Sports will be live from the home of the champions as another Premier League season kicks off, and with these first seven rounds of games there is much to look forward to. In our opening 24 matches we will show every Premier League team, telling the complete story as the season starts to take shape, as well as the big head to heads like Man City v Chelsea and Man Utd v Liverpool. With 116 games from the Premier League it will be another huge season of live football on Sky Sports, with more Football League games than ever before and the Euro 2016 qualifiers come to a conclusion with all the Home Nations in with a shot at getting to France next summer.”
Sky Sports will offer at least four more seasons of the Premier League, with 116 lives games coming this season increasing to 126 each term from the 2016/17 season.
Meanwhile, BT Sport has confirmed that football fans will enjoy all of the Barclays Premier League top four clubs in no less than six games in the opening stages of the 2015/16 season exclusively live on BT Sport.
BT Sport viewers will see Chelsea as well as Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur broadcast in the opening weeks of the season, kicking off a bumper year of football on BT Sport.
The channels will also show 351 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League games exclusively live across BT Sport’s four channels.
The Barclays Premier League season will begin on BT Sport with Manchester United taking on Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on Saturday, August 8 in the first of four United games to be shown on BT Sport in the first month. Both of Manchester United’s UEFA Champions League qualifiers will be broadcast on the new BT Sport Europe channel, alongside their two domestic fixtures on BT Sport 1 in August.
Simon Green, Head of BT Sport, said: “Football fans can look forward to a terrifically exciting start to the season on BT Sport in the Barclays Premier League. BT Sport will be broadcasting matches featuring last season’s top four six times during the Premier League’s opening stages, and they’ll also be seen exclusively live on BT Sport Europe as the European campaign begins.”