The Premier League broadcast rights further splintered yesterday, with Amazon Prime buying up one of the packages on offer, meaning they will have exclusive rights to 20 matches from the 2019/2020 season. In reality, that totals two nights of Premier League action, with ten games on simultaneously across two separate nights.
The story for Irish fans, however, is a little different. While the games on Sky Sports and BT Sport are the same in the UK and Ireland, the Amazon games will not be available here.
Instead, these have been purchased by Premier Sports, who have also picked up the live Irish rights to 33 Premier League games kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. While those games can't be shown in the UK they can be broadcast in Ireland, and Sky have been showing them here for the last couple of seasons.
As for the 20 games that Amazon have in the UK, Premier Sports have yet to decide fully on how to show these simultaneous games. We understand that some games may be offered on linear TV while the rest may be available via their online player.
Premier Sports is currently available in the UK and Northern Ireland on the Sky and Virgin platforms, and the purchase of these rights will likely lead to talks between the broadcaster and Irish platforms like Sky, Eir, Virgin and others so as to be able to show the games in Ireland.
While Premier Sports have the rights to 53 games in Ireland, Sky Sports remain the dominant broadcaster here, with rights to show 128 games every season. BT Sport, meanwhile, will show 52 games here.
