FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Premier League - Manchester City v West Ham United - Etihad Stadium, Manchester, Britain - May 3, 2023 Sky Sports television presenter David Jones alongside pundits Izzy Christiansen, Micah Richards and Gary Neville before the match REUTERS/Carl Recine/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) -Sky Sports has won the rights to show nearly a hundred more English Premier League matches from 2025, the league said on Monday, adding that all games except Saturday 3pm kickoffs would be televised in Britain for the first time.
Sky Sports will show a minimum of 215 live matches per season between 2025/26-2028/29 and TNT Sports - formerly BT Sport - will show 52 live matches per season during that period.
The deals will deliver 6.7 billion pounds ($8.45 billion) in revenue across the four-year period, the Premier League said in its statement, adding that it was inclusive of a 4% rise in live rights value compared to the previous process.
Sky paid 3.6 billion pounds in 2018 for a three-year deal for the rights to screen 128 matches a season, which was renewed amid the turbulence of the pandemic in 2021 without a usual tender process.
Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said that Sky and TNT - a joint venture by BT and Warner Bros Discovery - would "drive more people to watch and follow the Premier League."
"This is a fantastic result for Sky customers, who will see a significant increase in the number of matches," said Dana Strong, group chief executive at Sky, which is owned by Comcast.
The BBC has been awarded the rights to show highlights for all 380 Premier League matches each season.
Previous rights holder Amazon was not mentioned in the Premier League's release, with five packages awarded rather than the previous seven.
Britain prohibits live broadcasts of domestic or foreign matches between 2.45pm-5.15pm on a Saturday to protect the fan attendances of traditional 3pm kick-offs at football matches throughout the league structure.
While the new rights respect the 3pm Saturday "closed" period, the Premier League said that all matches outside that time would be broadcast, including those displaced to Sunday due to club participation in European competitions.
Sky will also broadcast all 10 matches on the final day of each season.
($1 = 0.7932 pounds)
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Kate Holton, Andrew MacAskill and Muvija M, Editing by Ken Ferris)
