Television rights deadline set

Television rights will net Premiership clubs a fortune

The future of football on television is set to be decided next Wednesday with the Premier League finally deciding who has won the rights to show matches.

The £1bn battle to show live games, highlights, and pay-per-view matches, is being hotly contested by digital providers and terrestrial channels.

The outcome will determine who owns the rights to top-flight soccer for the next three years, and will cost successful bidders a fortune.

It has been decided that sealed bids must be submitted to the chairmen of the 20 Premier League clubs by Wednesday, with a press conference provisionally scheduled for the following morning.

Premier League spokesman Mike Lee said: "The final stage of the process is designed to realise the full value of the TV rights for our clubs."

Exclusive coverage

Under the current contract, which runs until next year, BSkyB paid £670m for a four-year rights deal to exclusive live coverage of 60 games, while the BBC paid £73m for highlights.

The new main deal will have the rights to show 66 live matches on Sundays at 4pm and Mondays at 8pm.

The second package concerns the introduction of pay-per-view television coverage - limited to around 40 matches in a deal which could net the top clubs massive revenues.

BSkyB, NTL and ONdigital are expected to battle it out for both the main package of live rights and the pay-per-view contract.

The other deal up for grabs is restricted to terrestrial television and involves two highlights packages, one on a Saturday night and one on a Sunday evening.

This deal is currently held by BBC's Match of the Day programme which is likely to face stiff competition from ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

Interestingly, the Premier League has decided that a television company can only win one of the three packages on offer.

This means if BSkyB decides it wishes to try to continue showing live matches it must forfeit the right to bid for pay-per-view.

The Premier League has also combined the Saturday and Sunday highlights package into one bid.

This would allow whichever terrestrial channel wins the bid to have the rights to show highlights of non-live Premiership matches which take place on Sundays in addition to the current arrangements.