Amazon has acquired rights to show Premier League matches in the UK, confirming a new era in which digital platforms increasingly compete with traditional broadcasters to screen live sport.
The Premier League has announced that the US technology group will screen a total of 60 matches in Britain over three seasons, the first time a big digital company has entered the market for the most-watched competition in the country.
The price Amazon paid for the games was not immediately revealed. In a day of momentous change for one of the world’s most watched and valuable sporting competitions, Richard Scudamore, executive chairman, also announced that he would step down by the end of the year.
Mr Scudamore has overseen a period of enormous growth for the Premier League, transforming it into the richest division in world football and giving English clubs the means to pay huge transfer fees and wages to attract superstar footballers. Earlier this year, he conducted the Premier League’s latest auction for the rights to broadcast matches in the UK between 2019 and 2022.
In February, it was announced that Sky and BT had secured a large chunk of the domestic screening rights, paying a combined £4.46bn — significantly less than the £5.1bn achieved in the previous rights auction.
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