Amazon confirms purchase of Premier League rights package

This will be a shake up to the scene

Amazon has secured one of the remaining Premier League rights packages, meaning the company's streaming service will offer 20 matches a season online between 2019 and 2022. They will also have a weekly highlights package. Sky Sports and BT Sport purchased 160 matches per season for approximately £4.5 billion earlier in the year, meaning that two packages remained unsold until this week, with one being midweek and the other being Bank Holiday fixtures. According to report in the Daily Mirror, Amazon were attracted by the prospect of the Premier League's growing audience in the United States as well as the possibility of more people subscribing to Amazon Prime as a result. Prime members will receive the new package free as part of their current subscription, as well as the highlights package - which is good news for existing subscribers, but football fans who already have BT and Sky will have yet another service to fork out for. It appears that they won't have regular games throughout the season though. As the press release explains:

UK Prime members will have exclusive access to watch 20 matches per season, comprising two full fixture rounds – the first December midweek round and the festive Bank Holiday round - featuring live coverage of every Premier League team.

The Premier League joins Amazon's growing selection of live sports, which already includes US Open Tennis, ATP World Tour Tennis events and NFL games.