Or is there a chance that one of the Sunday 27th November games was a Monday night pick and moved due to potential League Cup ??

Its a strange week with BT having 2 Saturday games

Apologies if someone mentioned this at the time of the picks, but it makes perfect sense for BT to have passed first pick this weekend. Having Spurs v Man City up against the Ryder Cup would have been sub-optimal and for once the Sunday 12:00 slot is quite good.

It's not obvious what package the Sunday 12:00 Watford v Stoke game is in. Week 13 is followed by the EFL Cup quarter finals so it could be that Sky were allowed to move a Monday night game to Sunday 12:00 so as to not mess about supporters. But then why not just show it on the Friday night?

My guess is that it is a third pick in Package G. With Sky almost certainly showing both bank holiday games involving Spurs, that leaves one weekend Package G game available for a match not featuring a big 6 team. It would be a second Package G game for Watford, but that's not a problem because neither of their bank holiday games (Palace (h) and Stoke (a)) will be picked for TV.

If Watford v Stoke is a Package G game, it would show that the Sunday 12:00 slot is open to it (i.e. when Sky also want to show a game in Package C and D). I had wondered if BT can't pass third pick to Package G when Sky has used a first pick in Package D and a second pick in Package C (such as Week 1). But perhaps that is not the case.

They are showing AFC Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur on Sky Sports Mix on Sat 22nd Oct, 12.30 kick off

Is that the first PL game on this channel?
They have had EFL and Liga so far

Yes first one.

Today was a bonus of sorts for sky compared to last year. Turned out well for them.

Do you mean because with the previous packages today's game would have (probably) been on BT?

We don't fully know the situation with first picks and Sky's plan for the rest of the season. But I'd suggest that Man Utd don't look like title contenders and that's a problem for Sky given that Sky would die in a ditch before giving up their big head to heads.

Yes, I think it would have been on BT.

I wouldn't rule United out, but man city, spurs, arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manu all look possible winners. I'd expect sky to pass out early.

Tricky as hold back for April potentially required for six teams (no offence to Everton fans)

That was never the case and has never been stated to be the cae.

It's always been up to ten games.

Apologies

I agree with this. From what I can see it is the only package that it would fit. Although the original information didn't suggest that this package had the 12.00 slot available, it seems to be used as a catch-all when games have to be moved or when there isn't another acceptable free slot.

Disagree for the following reasons, G has no min quota so why would Sky waste one of their 14 picks on 2 of the smaller teams and miss out on showing more of the big teams, 14 games with a max of 2 means they can show the big 6 twice each (12 games) plus some other bigger teams like Everton or Leicester.

I imagine BT took the 1st two picks for it's Sat games, a fairly weak weekend so Sky would be keen to use it to get rid of both a 1st and 2nd pick for BT.

Sky then went with the Arsenal game as 3rd pick in G, ensuring G was used for a big team this allowed them to put it in the 1:30/2:15pm slot, Soton game then 4th pick for Sun 4pm (D), they then used a 5th pick from C for Watford/Stoke, this feels like nothing more than a 5th pick game, as 1:30/2:15 was already taken 12 is the obvious catch all slot. Makes much more sense than wasting a G pick on this game.

It appears Chelsea have already had 4 Sunday at 1600 games.
Cant believe Sky would use up 4 of 5 this early in Package D ???

Could one of the four be in package G ???

showing more of the big teams, 14 games with a max of 2 means they can show the big 6 twice each (12 games)
-------''-'-----------

There is a Big Six game on New Years Day Holiday.
That means there are 3 non big six games left to pick in Package G

Here are the Package G games so far:

3 Man City v West Ham
7 Burnley v Arsenal
10 Southampton v Chelsea
11 Liverpool v Watford
13 Watford v Stoke

I am fairly certain about weeks 7, 10 and 11. I am not certain about weeks 3 and 13.

The reason that I think it is the way TLG86 suggested rather than as above is that I also agree with him that the BUR-ARS game was from G, and I would be surprised that they would have used both Arsenal G opportunities up so early.

But they will already know which 8 games they are likely to pick BH should be announced very soon, only 6 package G games left from weekend rounds. If they don't want to show Arsenal either BH round picking them twice for weekend G makes sense.

The 6 package G weekend games are fairly minor in the scheme of things, I'm sure Sky can juggle there other 4 packs with max 19 games per team to show all the matches they want and to hold back picks for the run in.

That's right, Sky will be showing one of Arsenal v West Brom or Bournemouth v Arsenal at Christmas. What makes me think Burnley v Arsenal is a Package G game is the choice of Sothampton v Burnley in the Sunday 16:00 slot in Week 8. I doubt Sky would have picked that game if they had already filled the Burnley min quota in Package D.

And pjex - I think it is almost certain that Sky will pick both Spurs and possibly both Man Utd games in the Bank Holiday rounds which frees up one or two weekend picks for non big six games.

I think BT control when Sky take the 6 package G 3rd picks, it works as follows,

Sky get first pick over which weekends it has 3rd picks, 15 rounds from package E, if they don't select a 3rd pick it gets passed to BT package B (12 picks), BT then decide which 6 3rd picks to pass back to Sky (very much like 1st picks). I'm pretty sure BT will want Sky to lose all it's Package G 3rd picks early on so they can show them later and not be stuck with all their 5th pick package B games at the end of the season when 5th picks probably don't mean much.

So Sky exhausting package G picks early in the season is to be expected after the New Year round, they'll have used all 8 BH games plus probably 3/4/5 weekend games so really your only looking at 1 or 2 games.

There is no way BT would allow Sky a package G game during the run in. To counteract this tactic Sky will be passing as many 3rd games to BT as early as possible to ensure it's holding back its package E 3rd games for the run in, if there are 3 in the title race no way they can allow BT to get a vital game. Bt will not like this and will punish Sky by throwing 6 picks back at them at the earliest opportunity unless they would get to pick a really juicy tie.

In conclusion I very much doubt Package G has any relevance to picks in the 2nd half of the season. So exhausting a big team in package G in the 1st half of the season makes perfect sense.

Also every week BT get a 1st pick (9 in total), likely to be earlier in the season, they can't also take a 3rd pick in B. This forces Sky to either take a 3rd pick in E (can't do this too much as they need at least 6 for the run in) or use up it's 3rd picks in G.

Again more reasons why 3rd picks in G are likely to go in the 1st half of the season.

So BT don't (fully) control when Sky uses its weekend Package G games?

But yes, it's no surprise that the weekend Package F and G games are being used early.

So if we predict the BH games, that will leave us with the no. of times the big 6 can be shown at the weekend in G, so as an experiment I'll select;

Boxing Day
Hull ManC
Lei Everton
Soton Spurs
ManU S'land

New Year
B'mouth Ars
S'Land Liv
Spurs Chelsea
W Ham Man U

So that leaves the following in G for weekends; Liv x 1, Man C x1, Chelsea x1, Ars x1, leaving 2 games without big 6, I'd have thought Sky would rather use those two for games featuring Eve, Soton, W Ham, Lei before considering Watford or Stoke, seems an odd package G pick to me.

I think Southampton and possibly West Ham have already been shown in Package G and assuming they are shown in a bank holiday round that rules them out. Everton have a lot of games coming up that I think will be on Sky - Man Utd (h), Watford (a), Liverpool (h) and Man City (h) so Sky will be showing them a lot anyway.

And I'm not certain that Man Utd v Sunderland will be shown on Boxing Day. Sky might go Arsenal v West Brom and pick Middlesbrough v Leicester instead of Bournemouth v Arsenal. That will then leave Sky looking for a weekend Man Utd game in Package G. And to that extent they'll want to leave as many smaller teams not maxed out in Package G. Watford v Stoke would max out Watford (if Liverpool v Watford is Pacakge G), but not Stoke.

Of course what we're overlooking is that the highest pick may get 1st choice time slot on a Sunday, Soton v Eve as one of the 2 non big 6 weekend G games would make sense. As highest Sky pick it probably got the most prominent Sunday slot.

Watford Stoke is then a 5th pick D game relegated to noon, and saves Sky having to show either team in the prime 4pm slot for the whole season.

That's got to be the logical conclusion hasn't it a quota fill package D game?

Of course how does this explain Arsenal at 1:30pm? Easy it is a package E game bumped from Fri/Mon, can't play Fri due to CL or Mon due to EFL Cup.