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Kieran Maguire: West Ham could reap the dividends from new TV deal
West Ham will reap the divdends from the Premier League televising more matches on a Sunday – because of their Europa League schedule.
That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about the pros and cons of more televised matches on a Premier League weekend.
As reported by The Telegraph, the Premier League is considering a new 6:30pm kick-off slot on Sundays with more games set to be televised.
The Premier League is about to enter the final year of its £4.8billion broadcasting deal and hopes that a 25 percent increase in televised matches will help to attract bigger bids for the next cycle.
The Times added that the new deal could introduce more kick-off times on a Saturday evening.
Maguire believes West Ham will benefit from the changes because their Europa League schedule sees them play regularly on a Sunday, but adds that it will be a frustrating change for match-going fans.
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“It does seem like the proposed 6:30pm kick-offs will not go ahead,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.
“Even an organisation as thick-skinned as the Premier League has realised that this will not be popular.
“But there’s no reason why we can’t have an eight o’clock kick-off on a Saturday, which is equally frustrating for fans.
“The decision is partly due to the fact that if we take a look at the TV deals from 2017 onwards, there’s not been significant increase.
“In fact, there’s been no increase as far as the value of the domestic rights are concerned.
“So therefore, by selling more packages it could be financially beneficial – especially for sides such as Brighton and West Ham given that they will play more regularly on a Sunday due to Europe.
“However, I think there will have to be a revamp of the algorithm, which is used to determine how money is distributed on both merit fees and facility fees.“
In other news, West Ham set sights on Spanish star to replace Tomas Soucek