Playing sweeper

5 February 2018 By Liam Proud Follow @liamwardproud

The tech group may bid to broadcast England’s Premier League. A head-on battle with Sky, which paid 4.2 bln pounds last time, would be costly. But Amazon could break even by buying just a few matches so long as 15 pct of rivals’ customers jump ship to its TV service.

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European soccer’s spending splurge will intensify

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Amazon plans to bid for the rights to stream Premier League soccer matches in the upcoming UK broadcast-rights auctions, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 5 citing a source familiar with the matter.

That followed a Jan. 4 report in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, citing “two well-placed sources”, which said Amazon has consulted “industry experts” about the practicalities of adding English soccer to its portfolio of live sports.

The Premier League, which is owned by the 20 clubs in England’s top-flight division, in December issued an invitation to tender for the right to screen live soccer matches for the three seasons starting in August 2019.

The rights consist of 200 games per season, grouped into seven packages: five lots of 32 games, and two lots of 20 games. No single buyer is allowed to acquire more than 148 matches per season.

The last round of auctions, in February 2015, resulted in broadcaster Sky winning five packages totalling 126 matches and BT winning two packages totalling 42 matches.

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