BT Sport wins rights to more live Premier League football matches

BT Sport to show 42 live top-flight Saturday and Midweek matches for 2016/17 to 2018/19 seasons

Matches to be added to line-up featuring exclusive live action from the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, FA Cup and top-flight European leagues

BT is to show even more live top-flight football matches on its BT Sport TV channels after winning exclusive live rights to 42 Premier League matches in each of the 2016/17 to 2018/19 seasons. This is an increase of four matches per season on the current 38.

The new rights will see BT Sport show a live Saturday evening game every Premier League weekend from 2016/17 for three seasons. This will allow BT to build on its current Saturday programming and appeal to an even larger audience, having secured the prime evening TV viewing slot.

These new Premier League games from 2016/17 will be added to the 350 exclusive live matches from the UEFA Champions League and Europa League that BT Sport will be showing from both tournaments starting this summer. The channel also has live rights to the FA Cup for the next three years.

BT Sport currently shows around 50 live matches each season featuring Premier League clubs. It will show around 115 of these matches from the 2015/16 season onwards when all competitions featuring Premier League clubs are taken into account.
Football fans will enjoy a wide variety of football coverage with BT Sport. The channels will show exclusive live action from the Premier League, FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League and Europa League. Customers will also enjoy live football matches from top-flight European leagues, including Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.

John Petter, BT Consumer CEO said: “I am pleased we will be showing Premier League football for a further three years and that we have secured the prime Saturday evening slot. These new rights will enhance our existing schedule of football, rugby and other international sport, including all the live footballing action from the UEFA Champions and Europa Leagues starting this summer.

“BT Sport has got off to a strong start, reaching more than five million households and commercial premises, by making itself far more affordable and accessible to sports fans.”

BT Sport was launched in August 2013, when BT made it available to its consumer broadband customers for free. More than three million households have access to BT Sport, a number that rises to more than five million when wholesale deals are taken into account. More than 25,000 commercial premises, including 30 per cent of all UK pubs, also have access.

BT Sport is available via BT TV, Sky's satellite platform and via the BT Sport App. Virgin Media customers can also access the service. Audience figures continue to grow, with Premier League viewing on BT Sport up 17 per cent so far this season.

Financial details
The rights will cost £320m per season compared with £246m per season at present. On a per game basis, this equates to £7.6m per game, an increase of 18 per cent on the £6.5m per game currently.

A deposit of around £29m is payable this month followed by six instalments starting in July 2016 and continuing in the months of December and July until December 2018.

The launch of BT Sport has supported the financial performance of BT Consumer by reducing churn, attracting new customers and encouraging existing customers to take more BT products. BT Consumer has now grown its revenue and profit for four consecutive quarters, following the launch of BT Sport.