Following today’s announcement by the Premier League, we are pleased to confirm that
BT Sport will continue to show games at 5.30pm on Saturdays next season and then move to Saturday lunchtime fixtures from August 2019.
The group has remained financially disciplined during this process and remains in a strong position to make a return on this investment through subscription, wholesale, commercial and advertising revenues, especially following the acquisition of EE, which more than doubled BT’s customer base.
The group recently agreed a multi-year agency deal to market and sell Sky’s NOW TV service to BT customers, which includes Sky Sports, from early 2019.
Marc Allera, chief executive of BT Group Plc’s Consumer division, said: “The Premier League is undoubtedly the most competitive and exciting domestic league in the world, so we’re delighted that our customers will be able to continue enjoying Saturday games on BT Sport.
The Premier League is a big part of our live sport line-up, which includes the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, the Emirates FA Cup, MotoGP, boxing, Aviva Premiership rugby and European Rugby Champions Cup.”
“BT Sport is enjoyed by over five million households and pubs and clubs across the UK. We are excited about the opportunity to bring this great content to even more TV and mobile customers as we pursue our strategy of being the best provider of converged network services in the UK.”
BT has made top tier sport far more affordable in the UK in recent years. BT TV customers can access all of the action on BT Sport from just £3.50 a month.
The channels are available via BT TV and the BT Sport App, to EE customers, on the Sky platform and to Virgin Media customers. Audience figures continue to grow on BT Sport, with average viewing up 23% year on year in the last quarter, its best performance since launch in August 2013.
The rights will cost £295m per season for 32 games. A deposit of £26.5m is payable this month followed by six instalments of around £145m starting in July 2019, payable every six months until December 2021.
The Premier League auction remains ongoing and BT Group plc will continue to engage with the Premier League regarding the remaining rights.
