Premier League Football in Free-to-Air first

Tue 24th Jan 2012 | Television & Broadcasting

Premier League football will be available to view on free-to-air TV for the first time in its 20 year history.

ESPN have announced they will make all its content available free to watch on the 3^rd to the 6^th February. The promotion, sponsored by Nokia Lumia, will be available to up to 20 million people in the UK via BT Vision, Sky, TopUpTV and up to 10 million via the subscription-free digital service Freeview.

Jeroen Oerlemans, ESPN Vice President, TV Channels Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: “Millions of UK fans have already discovered the great range of great sport ESPN offers – from the Barclays Premier League to Serie A, to cricket, darts, motorsports and UFC. This is a great opportunity for us to introduce that to millions more and let them sample the programming ESPN has on offer.”

The weekend runs until 6am on Monday 6^th February and will provide fans access to a great line-up of live sport, including top flight football from across Europe, action from the NBA, Ultimate Fighting Championship and live studio shows.

The Barclays Premier League takes centre stage on Saturday at 4:30pm as Roberto Mancini’s title-chasing Manchester City host Martin Jol’s Fulham, who will be looking for points to push on towards the European qualification places. Viewers will see ESPN’s unique matchday coverage, including ESPN Arena, the augmented reality technology that allows enhanced studio analysis by ESPN’s pundits and special guests via a virtual pitch.

European football will also be available as German champions Borussia Dortmund travel to face FC Nuremburg, then on Saturday night Roma take on Inter Milan in Serie A. Sunday will see three more games from the Italian top flight, including the evening kick-off between title-chasing AC Milan and Napoli. These games, along with FC Kaiserslautern v FC Cologne from the Bundesliga, form part of ESPN’s newly launched Sunday line-up, where the sporting action is complemented by wraparound studio analysis and highlights as well as ESPN’s football debate and chat show Talk of the Terrace and Pardon the Interruption, as Mark Chapman and Steve Bunce dissect the week’s sporting stories.

Tweet

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RETURN TO LATEST NEWS SECTION

SUBSCRIBE TO THE FCBUSINESS RSS FEED

If you have any football business related news stories you’d like to share then please contact us – agourley@fcbusiness.co.uk or ryan@fcbusiness.co.uk

Add to: Google | Yahoo | Live | del.icio | Digg |