How to watch Premier League football after it restarts - plus full fixtures
The Premier League is coming back, but it's safe to say this season will finish like no other. With Liverpool well ahead, the real competition is for the Champions League and Europa League places as well as who will be relegated, of course.
When this season began, the broadcasting of games was more complicated than ever with Sky, BT Sport and Amazon sharing live broadcast duties. Now BBC Sport will join the fray with four live games - the first time the BBC will have been able to show a live Premier League game.
As well as those BBC fixtures, there will be a large number of other games that will be free to air - Sky has already announced it will make 25 available and Amazon Prime will show four.
All 92 remaining games will be broadcast live in some way. The aim is to keep supporters away from stadiums and prevent people from gathering together to watch.
How will the games themselves change?
While contact training has resumed, the restart date isn't 100 percent guaranteed.
All matches will take place behind closed doors for obvious reasons. There will be no fans whatsoever. Crowd noise may be pumped in, although we're not sure if this will be the case at all grounds.
The IFAB (International Football Association Board) is the organisation responsible for the rules of football and has allowed up to five substitutes per game. This would need to be ratified by the Premier League. The IFAB has also allowed leagues that were using VAR to opt out of using it for the remainder of the season, but there's no suggestion this will happen with Premier League games.
The Premier League's stated ambition is to complete remaining fixtures with home and away status preserved. However, there are several games - such as Liverpool's potential title-winning fixture - that look like they may be played at a neutral ground on police advice - again this is to stop fans from congregating around the ground.
The current list of these games (subject to change) are:
- Manchester City v Liverpool
- Manchester City v Newcastle
- Manchester United v Sheffield United
- Newcastle v Liverpool
- Everton v Liverpool
- The game in which Liverpool could secure the Premier League title
The planned kick-off times in the UK for live matches will also differ from traditional times. This is to do with the need to play fixtures back-to-back so they can all be shown.
Weekend matches will be scheduled as follows (all times BST):
- Friday 20:00
- Saturday 12:30; 15:00; 17:30; 20:00
- Sunday 12:00; 14:00; 16:30; 19:00
- Monday 20:00
Midweek matches will be scheduled as follows (all times BST):
- Tuesday 18:00; 20:00
- Wednesday 18:00; 20:00
- Thursday 18:00; 20:00
What Premier League games are coming up?
The first games are Aston Villa v Sheffield United and Manchester City v Arsenal, both postponed due to the Carabao Cup final in February.
These will take place on Wednesday 17 June and are 'games in hand'. It will mean all 20 clubs will have played 29 matches heading into the first full weekend of matches beginning on Friday 19 June.
Here's the games that have been announced and who is showing them:
Wednesday, 17 June
Aston Villa v Sheffield United (18:00), Sky Sports
Manchester City v Arsenal (20:15), Sky Sports
Friday, 19 June
Norwich v Southampton (18:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Tottenham v Manchester United (20:15), Sky Sports
Saturday, 20 June
Watford v Leicester City (12:30), BT Sport
Brighton v Arsenal (15:00), BT Sport
West Ham v Wolves (17:30), Sky Sports
Bournemouth v Crystal Palace (19:45), BBC
Sunday, 21 June
Newcastle v Sheffield United (14:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Aston Villa v Chelsea (16:15), Sky Sports
Everton v Liverpool (19:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Monday, 22 June
Manchester City v Burnley (20:00), Sky Sports
Tuesday, 23 June: Leicester v Brighton (18:00), Sky Sports
Tottenham v West Ham (20:15), Sky Sports
Wednesday, 24 June
Manchester United v Sheffield United (18:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Newcastle v Aston Villa (18:00), BT Sport
Norwich v Everton (18:00), BBC
Wolves v Bournemouth (18:00), BT Sport
Liverpool v Crystal Palace (20:15), Sky Sports
Thursday, 25 June
Burnley v Watford (18:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Southampton v Arsenal (18:00), Sky Sports
Chelsea v Manchester City (20:15), BT Sport
Saturday, 27 June
Aston Villa v Wolves (12:30), BT Sport
Sunday, 28 June: Watford v Southampton (16:30), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Monday, 29 June: Crystal Palace v Burnley (20:00), Amazon Prime (free to view)
Tuesday, 30 June
Brighton v Manchester United (20:15), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Wednesday, 1 July
Bournemouth v Newcastle (18:00), Sky Sports and Pick (on Freeview)
Arsenal v Norwich (18:00), BT Sport
Everton v Leicester (18:00), Sky Sports
West Ham v Chelsea (20:15), Sky Sports
Thursday, 2 July
Sheffield United v Tottenham (18:00), Sky Sports
Manchester City v Liverpool (20:15), Sky Sports
Premier League on Sky and Now TV
Sky remains the home of the Premier League on TV and it will show 64 of the 92 upcoming games. 25 of these will be free-to-air, on Sky's free-to-air Pick channel that's also available through other platforms like Freeview. As mentioned above, these free games will include the Merseyside derby on the first weekend back.
The broadcaster has teamed up with EA Sports to take the crowd noise from EA's FIFA game, so there will be team-specific crowd noise that you can choose to hear (or not).
Once again some games will be available in 4K through Sky Q with Dolby Atmos on the Sky Sports Premier League channel and, of course, you can also get everything through the Sky Go app. Sky Sports is also available through Virgin Media and BT TV.
While Sky has announced HDR for Sky Q, this won't be coming to Premier League games for some time to come.
Sky is also introducing another feature called Sky Sports Recap where you can catch up on key highlights during live matches. Each game will have a live timeline so you can skip to particular points. Plus Fanzone will enable you to be together with others while you watch on TV. Though, in reality, this isn't much different than being on a Zoom call at the same time.
Now TV is available through apps on various devices, of course, and you can use Now TV day, weekly or monthly passes to watch Sky Sports channels - the day pass is £8.99, week pass at £14.99 or monthly at £33.99. It's great if you don't have a Sky subscription yet would like to watch a Sunday of action a few times a season.
Premier League on BT Sport
For the first part of this season, BT was broadcasting the 12.30pm kick-off on Saturdays on that channel as well as some other fixtures.
BT viewers will have the option to turn on pre-recorded dynamic crowd noise to make the atmosphere more like it would be in a full stadium. They're also debuting a service called Watch Together, which lets people using the BT Sport App to watch do so in split-screen with a video chat, so that groups of friends can - wait for it - watch together.
The broadcasts are available in HDR on compatible mobile devices - you can get the app on phones and tablets as well as Apple TV, Xbox and PlayStation. They'll also be available in 4K with Dolby Atmos if you have the BT YouView Ultra HD TV box, and in 360 degrees through the BT Sport App for those who want it.
BT TV has told us it is offering a 50 percent discount on its Big Sport package until the season is over.
That means existing Fibre customers can watch the remaining 92 games live, for just £20 per month (down from £40 per month). You can turn the Big Sport package off afterwards should you wish.
Premier League on Amazon Prime
Amazon entered the fray this season and will have four games when the season restarts. While Amazon's previous games needed you to be a member of Amazon Prime to view them, this time they will be available free-to-air for anybody to watch even if you don't have a Prime subscription.
As before, you'll presumably be able to choose whatever game you want and watch them on replay after.
Premier League on Virgin Media
This season Virgin Media launched a new Bigger+Sports bundle costing £65 per month for new customers. For that, you'll get all the Sky Sports channels in HD as well as BT Sport in HD and 4K Ultra HD.
Premier League highlights
As during the first part of this season, each broadcaster can show in-game goals and clips from its live games as they're happening. Sky also shows extended highlights On Demand through its Saturday night Game of the Day and Match Choice.
Once more, the BBC will show Football Focus on Saturday lunchtimes, Match of the Day on Saturday nights - usually at 10.30pm and Match of the Day 2 around the same time on a Sunday.
We are led to believe there will be additional Match of the Day programmes to enable more fans - who now can't go to the games of course - to catch up on the action but we don't have details of these at present. However, we'd have thought it would mean that there will be regular midweek editions and any other times when there are more than a couple of games.
Sky will once again show Goals on Sunday on Sunday mornings.
All this season Match of the Day has been available on BBC iPlayer earlier than previously, though not as early as many would be like. The Saturday night programme will be available from 7pm on Sundays and Match of the Day 2 from midnight on Sunday into Monday.
While the latter is close to broadcast, the Saturday night show is nearly 24 hours later and it's because of other highlights packages and shows such as Sky's Goals on Sunday and Super Sunday that have the right to be shown first.
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