ESPN set to be announced as broadcast rights holder for EPL across region
ESPN is set to be announced as the broadcast rights holder for the 2024-2025 English Premier League (EPL) season across the Caribbean, the Jamaica Observer has been reliably informed.
The US-based cable network will take over as the regional rights holder of the most popular football league in the world from Jamaica-based VertiCast Media Group, which announced on Tuesday that its rocky tenure as holder of the rights had come to an end one year ahead of the scheduled expiration of the deal.
READ: Verticast no longer holds broadcast rights for EPL
READ: Premier League limbo?
The length of the new deal between ESPN and EPL is not immediately known.
Verticast had acquired the rights to broadcast EPL across the region for the 2022/23 to 2024/25 seasons. But it had issues getting regional cable providers, Flow and Digicel, to carry its distribution channels and took the entities to court in April over the matter.
Football fans across the region had to pay between US$3 (J$453) per week to US$77.99 annually to view EPL coverage via VertiCast’s CSport platforms.
However, earlier this year, subscribers found themselves having to source other platforms to watch matches when CSport stopped showing the matches.
VertiCast said Tuesday that it will be issuing full refunds to customers who were affected by the non-distribution of the games.
