Okay, so here is my "prediction" for the first 14 weeks of the season:
2016-17 Prediction
One thing occurred to me when I was doing this is that perhaps we should not rule out Sky opening the season with Arsenal v Liverpool. In the end I went for the Sunday 4pm slot, but it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to kick off the season with a big head to head to advertise that Sunday 12:30 is an important slot and you don't want to be out. Furthermore, filling the min quotas in Package D is always a bit awkward as you sort of think a game needs to justify being Sunday 16:00. Hull v Leicester would certainly do that and it would fill the Hull min quota in Package D which could be quite awkward to fill later in the season.
I have Sky giving up second pick in Weeks 2 (Man Utd v Southampton) and 9 (Liverpool v West Brom). I decided to have BT passing first pick in Weeks 2 and 7, but they may opt to take one or both of them. I have BT showing Burnley v Hull as a Package B quota filler in Week 4. As Stoke v Spurs (which I have BT taking as a fourth pick in Package F) has to be played on the Saturday, and as the Saturday 12:30 slot is taken (by Liverpool v Leicester on Sky), I decided to have Burnley v Hull in the Sunday 13:30 slot with just one PL match on Sky (Sunderland v Everton). It will be interesting to see if such a combination comes up this season.
I've mentioned before that Sky have been a bit unlucky in that a number of games that they might like to show are restricted to Friday and Saturday. For Spurs v Leicester in Week 10 and West Ham v Arsenal in Week 14 I decided to have Sky showing these games at Sunday 16:00 with the caveat for them to move to Saturday if needed.
I have Sky using five of their six weekend games in Package G getting games featuring one of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd in each. Two of these are third picks passed to Sky by BT. Week 7 (Swansea v Liverpool) could be a dodgy one for Sky but I think BT wouldn't take that game as they'd have secured Liverpool v West Brom in Week 9 as a second pick. Week 13 (Burnley v Man City) might also be dodgy, but Sky do have one other week in which to secure another Man City game (or they could show both City bank holiday games).
I have BT maxed out of fourth picks in Package F and have Sky using 10 Package E games - with one fourth pick deferred for later in the season (Week 9). I deferred this week as it was not ideal for a Monday night game (League Cup Fourth Round) and of the 10 games already picked, five are on a Friday night. I reckon that is the absolute maximum Sky will use in the first 14 weeks.
So this would leave BT with 6 first picks, 2 second picks, 10 third picks and 2 fifth picks in the remaining 19 weekend rounds. This looks quite good with no team on more than 2 picks in Package B and only four min quotas to fill. The problem for Sky is that there are weeks when Sky might be happy to give up third pick to BT but they want to get a fourth pick in Package D to fill a quota. It definitely felt harder trying to fill the min quotas efficiently under the new system.
This will probably be miles off, but it's interesting to look at the dynamics of the packages. I get the feeling that we're all going to be quite surprised when the picks are revealed.