Premier League games live on Sky Sports
It has been quite remarkable that we are now seeing various sports leagues and tournaments take place as per usual all over the world, after months of no sporting action earlier this year.
Of course, this has taken a lot of preparation and planning, with bio-secure bubbles needing to be created to minimize the chances of positive COVID cases among players, coaches and other staff members.
The Indian Premier League cricket tournament was a great example of conducting a tournament in a relatively hassle-free manner, while in Europe, all the major football leagues are back in business, albeit with no fans in attendance for the most part.
The Premier League is no different; it has been taking place behind closed doors ever since Project Restart to finish the 2019/20 season, and then with the new season which began more than a month later than usual in September.
Of course, given the relaxation of lockdown rules in the UK, some fans have now been able to attend matches. Clubs which are located in cities in Tier 2 of the lockdown restrictions have been able to welcome up to 2,000 fans into stadiums since a week or so, while there are none in Tier 1 yet, where they would have been able to allow 4,000 fans back in.
Nevertheless, this is still a very small proportion of the matchday attendance at most clubs in the Premier League – Manchester United welcome over 75,000 fans every home game, Arsenal and Tottenham have stadium capacities of over 60,000, and so on.
Thus, the majority of fans are still watching their teams from home, which has been the case for the majority of this year, which is why it is encouraging that more and more games are being broadcast in a bid to bring as much football as possible to viewers.
This was especially the case earlier this year, during Project Restart for example, when the Premier League and the EFL resumed the 2019-20 seasons but without fans in stadiums.
This led to a huge rise in the demand for live football on TV, as well as other football content such as highlights. At the same time, there were other businesses and sectors which tried to use this vacuum as an opportunity to attract sports and football fans to their products.
Online casinos were at the forefront, with many themed games and slots to try and bring football fans some more football-related content. At the same time, this gave them a chance to enjoy gambling, given that physical casinos and gambling locations were closed.
Sky Sports is going to be showing 27 live games over December, during what is traditionally a very hectic period for football in the UK, with its tradition of football matches taking place over the festive period as well.
These include the North London derby between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, the Manchester derby this weekend between Manchester United and Manchester City, as well as Chelsea’s visit to Arsenal on Boxing Day.
Other attractive games to watch out for include Manchester United vs Leeds on 20th December and Wolves vs Tottenham on 27th December. Sky Sports have also teamed up with BT Sport, the other rights holder for Premier League matches in the UK, to create a package where fans can get all the Sky Sports channels, along with BT Sport 1, 2 and 3, as well as ESPN, for just £37 per month.
Fans can also watch match highlights for free on the Sky Sports website and app as well as the Sky Sports YouTube channel. All of this shows just how much football content is going to be available over the month of December for fans to enjoy.
