This article is taken from the March 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Three o’clock Saturday afternoon is not what it was. While once football fans looked forward in unison to the weekly kick-off —now they need a forgiving boss, diary manager, and whole logistics teams to make it to matches taking place at lunchtimes and evenings on Fridays, Mondays and midweek.

For the games that do kick off on Saturday afternoons, some things remain as they were. While fans around the world can tune in, those in Britain are prohibited from doing so — lawfully, at least. Every week the inevitable messages on social media football accounts appear: “Anyone got a stream?”

The Premier League should launch its own streaming platform, advocates insist

We do not know how many millions of fans keep up with their teams by watching illegal online streams of matches, but the problem is significant enough for the Premier League to have taken action against websites that show them. Hesgoal.com stopped showing English matches in March last year — following an American court case in which the Premier League sought to identify its owners — and the website was closed down by US authorities in December.

Some reports suggest hesgoal.com attracted 40 million regular users, a quarter of them from the UK. And judging by the weekly social media traffic, its demise has not made those fans give up their quest for livestreamed football, but simply focus their efforts elswhere. The demand is there, and if demand cannot be met legally, it will go on being met illegally.

Taken with rapidly-changing technology, the eclipse of linear television and the success of streaming ventures from Netflix to Disney+, many are starting to ask whether the existing football broadcasting model is — to use that dreadful term — fit for purpose. A broadcast deal agreed last year between Major League Soccer in the US and Apple TV means every match will be available to subscribers all over the world. Some European leagues, like in Poland and the Netherlands, have done something similar. So why should the Premier League not follow?

The argument for “Premflix” as some call it, is simple enough. The Premier League should launch its own streaming platform, advocates insist. The technology is there, and the supporters clearly want it. We should get rid of the ban on broadcasting matches on Saturday afternoons, they say, and let freedom rip. Fans could pay less than they do for their existing subscriptions, but because of demand for specific matches and tailored content, the Premier League could make even more.

The idea is not completely outlandish. All Premier League matches were broadcast on pay-per-view television during the pandemic, and lower league matches are shown live, shot from a single camera and without any match analysis, for £10 a time.

The existing Premier League contract for broadcasting matches in the UK is with Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon. It was negotiated four years ago, and between 2022 and 2025 was worth £4.8 billion, with international rights worth a further £5.05 billion. But some club owners, in particular Todd Boehly, who bought Chelsea last year, believe the rights are under-valued and are looking to US tech companies to win a higher price. Apple TV is reportedly keen to bid for the next round of UK broadcasting rights.

Yet some experts are urging caution. First, there is the risk of reputational damage caused by technological problems. This, though, seems to be an overstated issue. Other leagues are already proving that the concept works, and when Amazon first started streaming matches, fears about buffering proved to be misplaced. There can be a short delay — “latency” is the word in the trade — causing fans to receive push alerts telling them their team has scored before they see it “live” on their screens, but with 5G rolling out across the country, this will not be a problem for long.

We will soon be watching all the football we want, whenever we want to watch it

The second challenge is about money. The Premier League already receives billions from the broadcasters — and far more than any rival leagues — so why would it want to change? But this seems to misunderstand the competition, commercialism and cold, ruthless negotiating power of the Premier League, which after all exists less as a governing body or sport regulator, and more as a collective for the single purpose of negotiating television revenues. Especially for this generation of club owners, growth and profit is the goal, and nothing — not lethargy, complacency or an attachment to familiarity and tradition — will get in the way.

The Premier League does not need to build its own streaming platform. In this respect, the sceptics are right and the advocates wildly naïve about the complexities of tech and the way business deals are done. Disney might have taken its decision to withdraw its content from Netflix and Amazon to set up its own streaming service, but it first acquired 20th Century Fox to be confident it could do so. The Premier League will not do that.

And of course, it might be that even if the tech companies bid for the rights, Sky will just outbid them. New entrants will conveniently drive up the price. But in the end, technology, the future of broadcasting — and the simple matter of what the fans demand — are all pointing in the same direction. We will soon be watching all the football we want, whenever we want to watch it.