Not sure if it's been mentioned but Super Sunday will now be sponsored by Nissan rather than Ford.

Could have been worst,could have been Skoda

Yes I mentioned it a few pages back when Sky revealed the sponsor change in their press release for the first batch of live matches this season.

Friday and Monday night football will be sponsored by bet365.

With sky announcing their team on Mon 8th, as stated on here, may do fixtures with it?

Last year they announced all of October and November on July 31st

So that will be a week later than last year

Looks like Simon Thomas will be presenting the Premier League this year

Yes, Sat lunchtime games. Stelling and Rachael Riley doing Friday nights. Thomas Sat lunch and Jones Sun and Monday.

Thursday 25 August
BBC TWO
BBC TWO

The Premier League Show

The first episode of a new weekly magazine programme featuring in-depth interviews with the biggest Premier League stars.

Presenter Gabby Logan is joined by former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

This week’s show sees Gary Lineker interview Liverpool’s charismatic German manager Jurgen Klopp, who guided the Reds to the final of the Europa League in his first season in charge at Anfield. Gary finds out more about the former Borussia Dortmund boss and his hopes for Liverpool, who won the last of their 18 league titles back in 1990.

Thursday 25 August

10.00-10.30pm

BBC TWO

NEW

Presenter Gabby Logan

Thats put me off it already

BT sport unveil their programme to take on Soccer Saturday and Final Score

'BT Sport Score', which will kick off every Saturday at 2.30pm, will see viewers kept up to date with all the latest live scores from across the UK and Europe, including the FA Women's Super League (WSL).

Presenter Mark Pougatch will be joined by a host of BT Sport pundits such as Jermaine Jenas, Harry Kewell, Robbie Savage, Harry Redknapp, David James and ex-referee Howard Webb.

Further guests will include current managers, recently retired players and former referees, as well as ex-players and leading figures from the WSL game. The show will also include fantasy football updates.

A fellow Chelsea fan asked someone who on fans forum when can expect next batch of live games. They have links with PL and apparently early next week so by Wednesday I would think we should have them.

It may be that the new packages have slowed down the process. The previous system was quite rigid in that once Sky had decided the course everything followed from there. The new system gives BT some flexibility and it only needs one unexpected move by them to force Sky into a rethink for future picks.

[quote=RobSmithS;83307648]"Sky to launch free broadband offer for sports customers" full article here (free until midnight)

http://www.sportbusiness.com/sport-n...orts-customers

This caught my eye




Looking at the Sky EPG for next Sat night/Sun morning Sky Sports 1 and it seems the PL highlights are now down to under 30m.

Sky just announce their programming schedule for the 2016/17 Premier League season.

Gary Neville is back with a "slightly" different role (he will only do guest appearances on MNF plus other "creative" projects).

Jeff Stelling to host Friday night football with Rachel Riley.

Simon Thomas will host lunch time Saturday matches.

Dave jones promoted to Super Sunday and MNF.

Hayley McQueen will present Game of the day on Saturdays and Match Choice plus 3pm matches for viewers in Ireland

More detail here: http://www.skysports.com/football/ne...st-ever-season

Worth a read.

http://www.danielgeey.com/the-curiou...ent-or-design/

I imagine now that they have announced there team that we will get the fixtures tomorrow or Tuesday at the very latest

First Friday night game - Man Utd v Southampton. I'm sure that pick had nothing to do with one of the hosts being a Man Utd fan.

They clearly don't read this thread! It makes perfect sense to not schedule big head to heads on the last day of the season as it is a potential waste from the broadcasters' perspective. Does this make it unfair on teams who are more likely to face a big team on the last day? Probably not, and in fact the big team may already be on the beach.

What their piece does confirm is the Week 5 phenomenon that has been mentioned on here before. That's usually around the second/third weekend in September and with everyone back from holiday it gives Sky the chance to get a really big rating for a Super Sunday. The new packages, however, make Sky's life a little more difficult so Sky have put this season's Week 5 big game on the Friday night. Also worth saying that this data, in part, predates the BT era when the PL would happily have double headers. I seem to remember Chelsea v Liverpool followed by Man Utd v Arsenal in September 2006. We think that those days are over as this would devalue the secondary first pick package.

Not so sure about Week 12, but Weeks 17 and 37 benefit from opening up the possibility of a Monday night game for the big head to head.

Still 5 Man United & Chelsea, 4 Liverpool, 3 Arsenal games left available to them from October in Ireland - a very lucrative package for very little money in all honesty.

Do we know if there is a min quota for this package? Here's what Sky might get in the next lot of picks, but obviously any of these could be moved for live TV:

01/10/2016 - Hull v Chelsea

15/10/2016 - Crystal Palace v West Ham

22/10/2016 - Burnley v Everton

29/10/2016 - Man Utd v Burnley

05/11/2016 - Liverpool v Watford

19/11/2016 - Middlesbrough v Chelsea

26/11/2016 - Arsenal v Bournemouth

Anyone an idea what day Burnley v Arsenal on 1st October atm will be. Hoping it will be Sunday because of work

I don't know about min quota but there is a quota of 5 max imposed on Setanta by the PL - ironically it was probably Sky Sports who pushed for the quota to be imposed on Setanta.

It really is astonishing that the PL did apply quotas as Ireland is not inside the UK but of course Ireland is probably the most restricted jurisdiction in terms of PL coverage in the world outside the UK.

Obviously this comes with a big health warning but I think it is likely that Sky will pass first pick and BT will take it to get Spurs v Man City. As Sky picked just one of Arsenal's first six games I would have thought it a certainty that they'll take Burnley v Arsenal. It could be Saturday 12:30 but given that there isn't Champions League the following week I'd have thought that it would most likely be on the Sunday. I'm hoping for 13:30 but it could easily be 16:00 in Package G.

At an educated guess (based on the previous two years) there's a minimum of 1 showing per team, which would make sense. Maximum quotas only really work if there's also a minimum.
Almost in confirmation all teams were shown at least once in the two seasons Setanta were working to quotas.

However, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it might be zero when the difficulties of the Package are taken into account. In addition, Setanta went to the wire with Hull's only appearance the season before last which seemed to be chance-taking.

Sky have confirmed (indirectly) that the package has a maximum of 5 showings per team.

On another note I have worked out why the Irish games are on Sky Sports 5 and not on the more logical (to our lay eyes) on Sky Sports 1.

Contrary to my previous posts on the matter I've discovered that Sky Sports 5 has no "pub" ads version. Apart from F1 it is the only Sky Sports channel that doesn't. So with just a UK and Irish ads version of Sky Sports 5 it is easier to have alternative programming on the UK SS5 when the matches are showing on SS5 Irish without having to worry about the Pint Glass version.

If they'd opted to show the game on Sky Sports 1 Irish, which would have made logical sense because of the Soccer Saturday simulcast, then there would have been a logistical nightmare over the "Pint Glass version" which would either require cards to be remapped for the duration of the game or publicans in either Ireland or the UK would be required to retune to the domestic version of SS1 at 3pm on Saturdays.

On reflection it then seems strange that they didn't leave the Soccer Saturday simulcast on Sky Sports 5 but they probably wanted the new 12.30 game to run straight into Soccer Saturday on SS1 in order to keep viewers away from their rivals!



It is really no surprise that quotas were applied. Once BT Sport aligned with Setanta the unfairness of that situation compared with Sky, especially in amounts paid, meant the Premier League had to do something. If Sky complained I really don't blame them.

Sky could show any team a maximum of 21 times and paid heavily for that right.

With BT Sport's maximum 7 showings added to Setanta's unrestricted 3pms forming a single subscription for Irish viewers you can see why the quotas were introduced.

Of course sky had the option to bid for them too... the limit in games in Ireland is not right in the first place!