The Premier League doesn’t have plans to televise all games when football returns, despite the fact they’ll take place behind closed doors.

Fans make their way to the stadium prior to the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and West Ham United at Emirates Stadium on March 07, 2020 in London, United Kingdom.
LONDON, ENGLAND: Fans make their way to the stadium prior to a Premier League match on March 07, 2020. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

It seems like whenever we all get used to the Premier League’s plans for the season to return, they come up with a new way to make it worse. The latest is that they don’t plan to televise all games, even though they’ll play them behind closed doors.

That’s according to the Mirror, who write that the Premier League aren’t planning to follow the EFL’s lead by screening every game.

It’s pretty clear why. They don’t want to do anything to aggravate Sky Sports and BT Sport. They know the two broadcasters have paid heavily for the exclusive rights to show matches, and don’t want to undercut that by showing all the other games too.

There are plenty of ways around this, though. If Sky and BT want the extra games themselves, they could take them. Or the Premier League could take those games in-house and broadcast them through their own service, so no other broadcaster benefits.

They could even arrange the fixture list such that Sky and BT’s matches still have their own exclusive timeslots. Put the rest of the games at different times so no viewers are tuning out to watch another team.

Simply not showing the matches in the U.K. is an awful idea. It will lead to a rise in illegal streaming, with clubs missing out on that revenue entirely. It’ll also encourage locals to attend stadiums where their team is playing.

These games must be available to watch, it’s the only option that makes sense.