Premier League for free for first time in 20 years as ESPN air Man City Fulham
Premier League in your home for free for first time in 20 years as ESPN air Manchester City v Fulham on Freeview
Fans will be able to watch a Barclays Premier League match for free for the first time ever next month.
Broadcaster ESPN have announced that their flagship channel will be free-to-view over the weekend starting Friday, February 3.
As a result, people who just have basic Freeview, of which there around 10m in the United Kingdom, will be able to watch Fulham’s trip to Manchester City on Saturday, February 4.
This will be the first time that a Premier League match has been made available for free.
Viewers will also be able to watch matches from Serie A and the Bundesliga, while basketball, tennis and UFC will also be screened during the four-day period.
“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,” said ESPN vice president Jeroen Oerlemans.
“This is a great opportunity for us to introduce that to millions more and let them sample the programming ESPN has on offer.”
The match will also be made available unencrypted to BSkyB, BT Vision and Top Up TV customers, meaning that it has a potential audience of 20m. The game will not be shown free to Virgin Media customers.
Nokia’s new Lumia smart phone will sponsor the weekend.
Yesterday’s game between Arsenal and Manchester United, shown on Sky, peaked at 3.6m (not including viewers in pubs). The earlier game between Manchester City and Tottenham was watched by just under 3m. The two games were among the most anticipated in the 20 year history of the league.
According to the Premier League, the previous record was 3.2m for last season’s game between Spurs and Manchester United. The highest recorded audience for a Premier League Match of the Day package was 5.49m in February last year, when viewers were drawn in by a record 41 goal haul that included Newcastle United’s 4-4 draw with Arsenal.
The game at the Etihad on Saturday 4 February will be the first Premier League game to be made available for viewing in homes with the basic Freeview package. But there is no guarantee of a bumper audience – many Freeview viewers have deliberately resisted the charms of the Premier League, which has been a key part of the BSkyB programming package.
The first live Premier League game was Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 win over Liverpool in August 1992. ESPN is broadcasting unencrypted for the whole of the first weekend in February, from Friday to Monday.
ESPN FREE WEEKEND: HIGHLIGHTS
Friday 3rd February
Bundesliga – FC Nuremburg vs Borussia Dortmund – 7:30pm
NBA – New York Knicks @ Boston Celtics – 1:00am
Saturday 4th February
Barclays Premier League – Manchester City vs Fulham – 4:30pm
Serie A – Roma vs Inter Milan – 7:45pm
UFC 143 – Nick Diaz vs Carlos Condit – 3:00am
Sunday 5th February
Serie A – Genoa vs Lazio – 11:30am
Serie A – Fiorentina vs Udinese – 1:45pm
Bundesliga – FC Kaiserslautern vs FC Cologne – 4:15pm
Studio show – Talk of the Terrace – 6:45pm
Serie A – AC Milan vs Napoli – 7:15pm
Studio show – Pardon the Interruption – 10:00pm
ESPN is available on Sky Channel 417
ESPN HD is available on Sky Channel 442
ESPN Classic is available on Sky Channel 429
ESPN America is available on Sky Channel 430
ESPN America HD is available on Sky Channel 431