The 3pm Blackout
The Premier League does not currently show any of its matches live on television in the United Kingdom if they kick off at 3pm on Saturdays, in order to protect attendance figures for lower-league clubs. This is colloquially known as the “3pm blackout”. The blackout was first introduced in the mid-1980s, when live football began to be shown on terrestrial television in England. At the time, it was felt that live broadcasts of Premier League games would dissuade people from attending matches at lower-league grounds.
The blackout was relaxed in August 1992, when the League allowed Sky Sports to show live games on Saturday afternoons, but still prohibited them from being shown on terrestrial television. In September 1997, the League further relaxed the rules, allowing live games to be shown on terrestrial television on a pay-per-view basis. In October 2007, the League finally allowed live games to be shown on terrestrial television on a Saturday afternoon, but only if they were not being shown on Sky Sports or another pay-TV platform.
The 3pm blackout is currently in place because the League feels that it would adversely affect attendances at lower-league grounds. The League has also stated that the blackout is necessary in order to protect the interests of its broadcast partners, who pay large sums of money for the exclusive live television rights to Premier League matches. Critics of the blackout argue that it is outdated and unfair to lower-league clubs and fans, who are often unable to watch their team’s games live on television. They also argue that the blackout is no longer necessary, as the Premier League is now the richest football league in the world and does not need to worry about attendances at lower-league grounds.
Premier League Broadcast History
The Premier League has global broadcast partnerships with several companies, including Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video, and NBC in the United States. The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. In the 2014–15 season, the average Premier League match attendance exceeded 36,000, second highest of any professional football league behind the Bundesliga’s 43,500. Despite this, the Premier League does not sell the exclusive live television rights to any one broadcaster. Instead, the League sells these rights on a territory-by-territory basis. In the 2010s, Sky Sports and BT Sport acquired the majority of the live television rights to Premier League matches.
