Premier League boss open to selling TV rights to online providers

Football fans may have to ensure they have Amazon or Netflix subscriptions in the not-too-distant future, after the head of the Premier League said it’s possible television rights could transfer to such companies in the future.

Speaking to The Times, Richard Scudamore said on Monday that current rights holders BT and Sky would not have preference over online providers when it comes to the bidding process.

The two companies spent over £5bn in 2015 in order to secure the rights to show Premier League football for three seasons, but their stranglehold could be about to come to an end.

Last week Amazon won the contest to broadcast the ATP world tennis tour exclusively

Last week, Amazon won the contest to broadcast the ATP world tennis tour exclusively, a major breakthrough for Jeff Bezos’ firm as it makes further inroads in the online entertainment business.

"We envisage anybody, really, being able to come along and bid for those rights," Scudamore said. "We would need some distribution criteria and to make sure it was readily available across platforms and everything else, but as long as it was widely available and distributed properly, we wouldn’t rule those out."

The next rights cycle for the Premier League comes around in 2019, with the bidding process getting underway later this year. Amazon has not yet said if it plans to submit a bid.