ESPN has reached an agreement with Fox Sports International to sub-license more Premier League games beginning with the 2010-2011 season, a source confirmed to EPL Talk on Tuesday.
The number of games ESPN will show during the 2010-2011 season will be 83, which is almost double the number of Premier League games shown (48) by ESPN during the current 2009-2010 season.
Currently, ESPN has sub-licensed the rights from FSI to show the Saturday 7:45am ET and Monday 3pm ET kickoffs.
As of press time, the additional time slot ESPN has acquired for the 2010 season was unknown, but EPL Talk believes it’s most likely the 8:30am ET Sunday time slot because it won’t conflict with other live programming that ESPN provides. The other possibility is that ESPN may take the Saturday 10am ET time slot since several games are available at that time, but the issue ESPN will have is where to place the EPL game since ESPN has its College Gameday program during that time slot.
When asked to comment on the story on Tuesday afternoon, an ESPN spokesperson said “We have nothing to announce at this time.”
The 2010-11 Premier League season begins on August 14, 2010.
In related ESPN news, ESPN360.com will be rebranded as ESPN3 in April.
