‘The competition to show live Premiership matches at tea-
time on a Saturday on terrestrial television for the first
time will begin in earnest this week when Sky send out
tender documents to BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
‘Last November, under pressure from the European Commission,
Sky were forced to accept that they could no longer have
exclusive rights to all live Premiership matches, something
they had enjoyed since the Premier League was formed in
1992. The Commission's argument was that such a monopoly was
against the anti-cartel provisions of the Treaty of Rome.
‘Sky's new three-year deal, starting next season, would have
allowed the company to show 138 live matches, but the
Commission have forced Sky to sell eight of these games.’
So non Sky subscribers get a whopping 8 games per season, most likely Southampton vs Middlesbrough and the like. Whoop di doo!