PL and EFL to hold talks on abolishing the 3pm blackout rule with leagues eager to sell all games in next rights cycle.
The PL and EFL will negotiate early next year to allow live broadcasting of Saturday kickoffs at 3 p.m. every week for the first time.
The Premier League and EFL want an early deal before the next tender because they are keen to sell all of their games to domestic broadcasters in the upcoming rights cycle, and the UK is the last nation in Europe to implement the so-called 3pm blackout.
This season, the Premier League and EFL have shown a record 270 and 1,059 of their games on domestic TV, primarily on Sky Sports. However, they have determined that the best way to increase revenue is to sell every game.
The EFL plans to go to market at the beginning of 2027 and needs to know what it can offer, even if their contracts do not expire until the end of the 2028–29 season. It is anticipated that the Premier League auction will happen later that year.
The EFL and Sky Sports have a five-year agreement for £935 million that grants the broadcaster exclusive live rights to 1,059 Championship, League One, League Two, Carabao Cup, and EFL Trophy games per season. If the Premier League and Football Association agree to lift the blackout, the EFL may be able to broadcast all 1,891 of its games.
Given the diminishing value of broadcast rights throughout Europe, the Premier League is also eager to investigate selling every game. Although its domestic deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports is worth a record £6.7bn over four years, the league added an extra year to the contract and increased the number of games from 215 to 270 each season.
As is the case with all US sports, several American owners of Premier League clubs have been lobbying to broadcast every game for a while. The blackout is related to Article 48 of the Uefa statutes, which states that it may be illegal to broadcast live football in a territory for “two and a half hours on a Saturday or a Sunday.”
In the context of English leagues, it applies when half of the Premier League and Championship games are set for Saturday at 3 p.m. This clause allowed the EFL to broadcast every game on the first weekend of this season because the Premier League didn’t start until the next week.