I have to be honest, I don’t watch a lot of football. I like to watch England matches and will watch football if it’s on at someone else’s house but I’m not fussed about sitting down and watching a game really. However, when the Premier League came back and finished the 19/20 season with lots of games shown on free to air TV, I started watching again. This rekindled an old love for football and I’m excited for next season. So when does the Premier League return?
The Premier League Return Date
They’ve announced the the date for the Premier League return will be September 12th. That gives the teams about six weeks between the new end of this season and the start of the next. Before that, the Community Shield is set to be played on August 29th. Obviously the Euro championships got postponed and other leagues had cancellations and changes. Hopefully the new season will be the start of getting things back to normal. Obviously they’re going to start without crowds again but hopefully fans will return soon.
Why Is a Money Blogger Writing About The Premier League Return Date?
Well to start with, when my eldest started school, he got friendly with a couple of other lads who like football and they support Liverpool. So for the last three years or so, we’ve had a Liverpool fan in the house. That is great for my Dad because he’s a Liverpool fan, but all my cousins are United supporters so they frown upon this. My son was excited when Liverpool won the league and it’s really nice to see him have a little passion for something. We’ll sit and watch the first half of a game on his staying up nights and I’ll tell him the final score in the morning. He’s even getting excited about my team (Harrogate Town – birthplace!) potentially getting into League 2 this weekend. We’ll see what happens!
The main reason for writing about this though, as a money blogger, is because they are talking about having more matches on free to air television. Apparently the matches they showed during lockdown so we could enjoy some free to air football as a nation was a success. So much so that they’re considering more of a hybrid. This would be between paid football on the likes of Sky Sports and BT Sport. Also showing some games for people who only have the ‘normal’ television channels.
The Stats
Apparently there were 28 games of top flight football were shown out of the subscription model of Sky, for example. These included four games on the BBC. The stats of those matches make for good reading. The matches averaged 1.9million viewers. That’s an increase of over a third that watched Sky Sports in the same period. It appears that a silver lining of lockdown could be more free to air sports.
It’s a good thing for both fans and those subscription based services as a quote from the newspaper article I read says:
“Give free-to-view fans a taste of what the subscribers get is likely to give them an appetite to want more.”
I won’t be signing up to pay to watch football. However, I’ll watch some games on an evening when there’s nothing else on. Or between teams I’m interested in. For free. So the Premier League return date could mean the start of some more live football on the likes of Freeview channel 11, otherwise known as Pick. Of course, there are ways to get good deals on Sky Sports, by getting NowTV passes for example.
It’s a great thing that the combination of free to air and paid for football is being discussed. It will only help our grassroots sports and interest in the game. I hope the Premier League return is the start of some good things.
