The EFL is considering lifting the 3pm blackout for Saturday matches from the 2024/25 season as they prepare to receive bids for their next set of television and media rights.
The EFL’s £595million five-year contract with Sky expires at the end of next season with complaints at the time from clubs within the league that the governing body had undervalued the competition.
Multiple reports now indicate that the EFL are considering new ways of broadcasting the competition, including removing restrictions on showing matches between 2:45pm and 5:15pm, a process that has been in place since the 1960s, although was lifted during the 2020/21 Covid-impacted campaign.
Hopes are that streaming giants Netflix and Amazon will bid, while Google, Apple and Facebook are also being targeted in a deal that could give access to all 1,891 games across the Championship, League One and Two, the EFL Cup, EFL Trophy and all end-of-season play off matches.
Under Sky’s agreement, which is worth £119m a season, 138 games are shown over the season, including two Championship fixtures every weekend.
“With 54% of the UK population watching EFL football on television each year and a global audience of more than 400 million, it’s an exciting time to be going to market for the League’s broadcast rights,” the EFL’s chief commercial officer, Ben Wright, said.
“Whilst the appetite for EFL football remains stronger than ever, we want to grow this audience further. We are inviting proposals from organisations that can enhance and develop the league’s offering, taking a new and innovative approach to how people consume EFL content.
“Alongside the EFL’s rich tradition and distinguished history there is a desire to evolve, grow and innovate in order to grow our audience further and we’re looking for a partner or partners who share that vision.”
The arguments for keeping the 3pm blackout, which applies only in the UK, meaning fans overseas can still stream matches, is that it ensures more fans attend live matches, keeping attendances at a maximum which remain the primary revenue sources for EFL clubs. Enabling every game to be televised, could therefore lead to a drop in crowd numbers, albeit mitigated by the prospect of a bigger television deal.
In their published accounts for the 2019/20 season (the 2020/21 was played behind closed doors so matchday revenue fell significantly), Bristol City received £728,700 in broadcast revenue compared with £4,750,611 from ticket sales. Bristol Rovers do not published such details in their accounts.
Outside of Red Button coverage, City have been broadcast on Sky Sports once so far this season, the Severnside Derby against Cardiff City on August 21, while Rovers' forthcoming trip to Sheffield Wednesday on October 26 is their first televised league game since September 2017.
