Newcastle United 3pm Saturday games are now history – New Premier League TV deals

We now have confirmation of the new Premier League TV deals.

Confirmation of how many of the 380 matches each season will be shown live by broadcasters in the UK.

These new Premier League TV deals are now going out to tender for a four year period, starting with the 2025/26 season.

In the never ending drive for more and more money, the owners of Premier League clubs deciding a massive leap in the number of games the broadcasters can bid for, when it comes to the UK rights.

It is currently 200 of the 380 Premier League matches per season, this will go up to a staggering 270!

To show the incredible acceleration in the number of PL games given up for UK live TV coverage.

As recently as the 2018/19 season, which was the third and final season of that deal, ‘only’ 168 PL matches were televised live, that worked out at 44 per cent of the 380 PL games.

Currently it is 200 of 380, which is 52 per cent of all PL matches, now from 2025/26 it will be 270 of 380, which is 71 per cent.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every Premier League club will see 71 per cent of the matches shown live (and moved!). The clubs the broadcasters want to show, are chosen massively more than those clubs who aren’t so popular with broadcasters (and viewers), currently far more than 52 per cent!!!

Before the last Premier League match at St James’ Park against Burnley on 30 September, the only Newcastle United Premier League games in the whole of 2023 that hadn’t been chosen for live UK broadcast were:

Brentford 1 Newcastle 2 (8 April 2023)

Newcastle 3 Southampton 1 (30 April 2023)

Chelsea 1 Newcastle 1 (28 May 2023)

In actual fact, that Burnley game was the very first Premier League home match in 2023 to be played at 3pm on a Saturday. The Southampton game in April was not televised but played on a Sunday due to a knock on effect of other PL clubs playing in Europe. Whilst that Chelsea away was on the last day of the season when all PL matches are played on a Sunday.

So from 1 January 2023 all the way until 30 September 2023, that Brentford away match in April was the only NUFC match played 3pm on a Saturday.

Even when we were rubbish, Newcastle United were always a popular pick for the broadcasters, now we are decent, that popularity with broadcasters has gone crazy.

When you include all Newcastle United matches in all competitions, played from 1 January 2023 up to that Burnley one on 30 September 2023, a quite mad 31 of 34 games had been broadcast live in the UK in the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.

From 2025/26, I think we will be looking at pretty much no Newcastle United matches at all, to be played at 3pm on a Saturday.

The reality is that we are pretty much there already.

BBC Sport report – 18 October 2023:

‘The Premier League will increase the number of live televised fixtures in the UK from 200 to around 270 in its next rights cycle.

Five live packages of between 42 and 65 games are going up for tender in a four-year deal from the 2025-26 season.

The Saturday afternoon 3pm blackout will remain in place but every 2pm Sunday kick-off will be televised.

This is the first time the Premier League has been through a tender process for its rights since 2018.

The current £5bn domestic TV rights deal, which expires at the end of the 2024-25 season, was allowed to be extended because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It the first time the Premier League has put its UK rights up for sale in six years and it expects to secure a significant increase in value for the new deal.

Currently Sky has four packages consisting of 128 matches per season, TNT two packages with 52 matches and Amazon has one package of 20 matches.

In the new deal, five midweek rounds will be available instead of the current four, while the Saturday 12:30pm and 5:30pm and the Sunday 2pm and 4.30pm stay in place, along with the 8pm Monday or Friday slot.

The tender process will be completed by the end of the year.’