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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Neil McLeman

'Medieval' 3pm blackout could end as DAZN make move to buy TV rights from Sky Sports

Sports broadcaster DAZN wants the “medieval” 3pm Saturday blackout rule removed to allow them to show all 1671 EFL matches live each season from 2024-25.

Sky Sports have held the EFL rights since 2002 and paid £119m-a-year for the exclusive rights in the latest contract showing 138 games-a-season.

But new players such as London-based DAZN and Viaplay are now competing with Sky Sports and BT Sport for the new rights from 2024-25 with the price set to soar.

DAZN, which claims to be the largest sports broadcaster in Europe, believes the EFL is under-exposed as a product and there is a market to show every match live in the UK and worldwide.

That would require the removal of the Article 48 of the UEFA Statutes which the FA applies to stop any live broadcast of games between 2:45pm and 5:15pm on Saturday afternoons.

Sources close to the DAZN bid see the rule, introduced in the 1960s, as “medieval” and “anachronistic” and only encourages fans to watch pirate streams.

DAZN will also consider bidding for the Premier League rights when the current deals expire at the end of the 2024-25 season.

Chief executive Shay Segev confirmed DAZN's interest in the Premier League rights in an interview with The Times last month.

DAZN wants to bid for the next set of Premier League rights (AFP via Getty Images)

"Football is obviously very big in the UK and EPL is an option on our menu," he said.

"If the question is do we have any ambition to go to this market, the answer is of course yes. And it's not only ambition it's a high priority on my list.

"DAZN is a sports service and clearly we will try to get bigger packages but the maths needs to work.

"The question is the economic situation, the competition and whether we will be in a position to be strong enough to position ourselves as the best.

"I am very, very confident that in the mid to long-term we can be a big player in the UK.

"Whether this takes, two years, five years, seven years, time will tell."

Two hundred of the the 380 Premier League matches are currently shown live, with the fixtures sold off in seven different packages.

Sky Sports currently hold four of these, with BT Sport possessing two and Amazon Prime one.

The successful bidders for the new EFL contracts are expected to be announced this summer.

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