THE BIG DEBATE: Premier League’s new £6.7bn TV deal means the 3pm blackout is here to stay until 2029… Mail Sport’s experts argue for and against keeping football off TV on a Saturday afternoon

The issue around maintaining the Saturday 3pm blackout – meaning no games across the English football pyramid are shown on TV in the UK during that slot – routinely causes fierce debate.

That debate has been reignited after the Premier League agreed a new four-year TV deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports worth £6.7billion. 

Following the agreement, which will start in 2025 and end in 2029, all Premier League matches outside the 3pm blackout are set to be televised on either of the two broadcasters, with Sky the biggest winners having bought the rights to 215 matches per season.

But is keeping with tradition and maintaining a blackout good or bad for the game?

Mail Sport’s reporters have their say whether they are for or against keeping it… 

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has hailed the new broadcasting agreement 

FOR 

Matt Barlow

I feel strongly that the 3pm must stay. It’s vital to the long-term health of the pyramid which is what sustains English football and makes it unique. 

I am surprised any EFL or non-league clubs are tempted to turn against it but I know some of them have. It must be down to financial pressures and proves how difficult they are finding it because revenue is squeezed as costs soar.

The prospect of extra income from the sale of live 3pm streams might be attractive, and I don’t think there would be any immediate impact because the hard-core match-going fans will not suddenly disappear.

I fear the problem comes when future generations change their match-going habits.  When 3pm on a Saturday is a time to turn the TV on and watch live games rather than wrap up warm and go to the ground. And people going to the game is what it’s all about. 

It’s about the people flocking to that place. That’s how a club is bound to its community. Removing the 3pm blackout will only loosen this connection.

One of the arguments for keeping the blackout is to encourage fans to support lower leagues

Joe Bernstein

I’m for the 3pm blackout staying. 

Change is inevitable in life and sport but that doesn’t mean we have to smash headlong into ripping up all traditions.

A lot of changes haven’t worked – who wants to sit around twiddling thumbs while a panel of ‘experts’ debate whether an arm is natural or unnatural. 

Ditto live football on telly. Have it Saturday lunchtime, Monday nights or 3am on Thursday for all I care. 

But let’s keep that one time slot in a week where if you want to see a game, get off your backside and go to a stadium.

Tom Collomosse

Lifting the 3pm blackout would hit the poorest clubs the hardest and for that reason we should oppose it.

The further you travel down the football pyramid, the more clubs rely on income from match-going supporters.

As it is, it is difficult for clubs like Swindon or Walsall or Barnsley to hang on to young supporters, who are fed a constant diet of Big Six football on their televisions, consoles and social media platforms.

If they could watch their heroes whenever they liked, are they really going to head to Oakwell on a wintry Saturday afternoon instead?

There are few purer experiences than watching your team play at home every other weekend. It must be protected.

There is a fear that matchday attendances would take a hit if every match was available at 3pm

David Coverdale

While it is ludicrous that football fans abroad can watch more of our domestic matches than we can, my only fear is that abolishing the blackout would affect lower-league attendances and cause further financial turmoil for those clubs.

For supporters who follow a Premier League club but like to attend their local EFL or non-league ground at 3pm on a Saturday, would they start staying at home if they could watch their top-flight team on TV?

A parent may certainly have more trouble persuading their kids to leave the comfort of their sofa to go and watch, for example, Gateshead if Newcastle were on the box at the same time.

I do not think ending the 3pm blackout in the Premier League would affect top-flight attendances. Many stadiums are already oversubscribed. Nor do I believe that loyal fans of EFL clubs would stop going to support their sides in person even if their 3pm matches were available to watch from home.

However, it would risk turning away the more casual punter – and getting them through the gates is vital to helping keep lower-league clubs afloat.

Smaller clubs in regions that have a Premier League team could find themselves impacted

Jack Gaughan

Anyone who spent their childhood going to watch their local team at 3pm on a Saturday will be against abolishing the blackout. And I still am, largely for the sort of traditional reasons associated with the romanticism of a three o’clock Saturday. And how for a standard club in the middle of League One or Two, who rely on matchday receipts, the increase in TV revenue is unlikely to alter their balance sheet a great deal. Again, it’ll somehow be them getting squeezed.

But like everything else in football, obviously it’ll eventually change. 

Isn’t there enough football on tele already? Isn’t this just giving away another inch to wreck the schedule even further in the future?

Kieran Gill

I’m still in favour of the Saturday 3pm blackout. There is enough Premier League football on TV without needing to add to it at the expense of lower-league clubs losing fans.

Say you fancied watching some football on a Saturday at 3pm, you could watch Newcastle versus Manchester United on Sky Sports, that channel for which you’re already subscribed, or you could pay on the gate to see Hartlepool host Chesterfield at Victoria Park. 

I suspect a fair few would chose the more convenient option. That’s why ending the blackout isn’t for me. 

If you want to take in a game at 3pm on a Saturday, go support your local side. 

Lower leagues would unlikely see a large enough cut of enhanced TV money with no blackout

Craig Hope

The 3pm blackout must stay, and I have two overriding reasons:

1) Protect lower-league football. I have three sons and often take the oldest two (7 & 5) to watch Heaton Stannington in the Northern League when I’m not covering a game on a Saturday. It’s a 3pm kick-off and it’s always a brilliant day – great non-league ground, community, kids play on the pitch… it’s exposing them to proper football and supporting a local club. 

In time, would they still want to go if Premier League matches are on TV at 3pm? I would like to think so, but maybe not. The impact on attendances at this level and in the Football League would be my biggest concern. 

2) There is too much football on TV. 

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I like seeing some goals for the first time on Match of the Day. I remember hearing word of David Beckham’s goal from the halfway line against Wimbledon in 1996 and could not wait to see it that night. Let’s keep a little romance and mystique to Saturday football. 

AGAINST

Kathryn Batte

Yes – but only for the women’s game:

Karen Carney’s review into women’s football recommended a dedicated broadcast slot for WSL matches and an exemption from the 3pm blackout was suggested as a viable option.

The Government has since backed this in their response to Carney’s review, suggesting that an exemption could significantly increase broadcast and commercial revenue.

The current system – which sees the majority of matches broadcast at 11.30am on a Saturday or 6.45pm on a Sunday – does not maximise both viewing figures and fan attendance. There is no guarantee a 3pm slot would work better, but it is probably worth a try.

An exemption from the blackout would require support from the Premier League and the EFL, which Carney seemed to believe would be difficult.

There is a strong argument that women’s football would benefit from blackout exemption

Nathan Salt 

Now is the time to evolve. The 3pm blackout should go.

The way fans are consuming football these days, away from being there in person, is proof the blackout has long outstayed its welcome.

The traditional FA Cup kick-off time is no more and looking at tennis, Wimbledon read the room and ditched the middle Sunday rest day to increase fan access.

I fully appreciate the arguments about preserving attendances but thousands of UK users can quite easily circumnavigate the internet to watch streams of matches every weekend through a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

VPNs are legal in the UK – not legal in the case of pretending to have an internet connection in a country outside of the UK in order to use iFollow or worse, an illegal live stream – and a quick Google search provides guides on ‘how to beat the blackout’.

Ditching the blackout would help open up the brilliant stories across the football pyramid to a huge audience. We are in an era where goals are clipped up and shared on social media within seconds of the action happening. These videos go viral and suddenly text-by-text updates no longer satisfy.

People want to see it and are, more often than not, comfortable to find any means to do so. Make life easier, not harder.

Sky will broadcast at least 215 live games, including every match on the final day of the season

Adam Shergold

The 3pm blackout is the ultimate football anachronism and should be scrapped as soon as possible.

You only usually get a handful of Premier League games at 3pm on Saturday anyway because of TV coverage and the Thursday night European competitions. Those who want to watch them simply use illegal streams or a VPN, so it’s surely preferable for the Premier League to legalise it.

I’ve never bought the common argument that permitting televised 3pm games will affect attendances in the lower leagues.

Maybe it was relevant in the 1960s, but do you think a fan of, say, Mansfield, will waver on their doorstep thinking: ‘Ooh, should I go to watch Mansfield or stay in and watch Fulham vs Bournemouth?’ Of course not. Proper supporters will always go to the stadium and watch their team.

Earlier this year I was in New Zealand and the sports channels there on the other side of the globe had all the 3pm games showing live. It struck me what nonsense it is that if I was back in the UK, I couldn’t watch them! Why are domestic fans punished in this odd way?

If we’re going to remain in the past, then perhaps, as has been proposed, the Women’s Super League could have the live 3pm slot. It would help raise its profile.

Meanwhile, TNT Sports will continue to broadcast the 12:30pm kick-offs and show two midweek slates from the 2025-26 league season, picking up 52 matches per season in total