Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has asked the Premier League to consider broadcasting matches free-to-air if and when the current season resumes.
“I have said to the Premier League it wouldn’t send the best signal if they were one of the first major sports to resume behind closed doors and the public at large couldn’t have access to it,” Dowden told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee this week.
While the basic channel Sky Sports Mix has screened a handful of matches this season it is only available in Sky households. In its 30 year history the Premier League has never been seen on free-to-air terrestrial television.
One precedent is last year’s cricket World Cup final where Sky sublicensed the rights to the final to Channel 4.
The chair of the committee, Julian Knight, expressed his concern that with live Premier League football confined to pay-TV fans may simply go around to each other’s houses in order to view the games.
Dowden said he didn’t want to speculate on which platform the matches might be screened. “To your point, if they are being mindful of access points that doesn’t just have to be going onto traditional terrestrial matches, or even showing all of the matches.
The Premier League has been on hold since March with football clubs looking for a resumption to safeguard their multimillion pound contracts with Sky Sports and BT Sport, who between them hold the live rights. The BBC screens highlights in the long-running Match of the Day.
