[Brekkie]

The Daily Mail is reporting that the BBC are set to offer Gary Lineker a new contract following the renewal of the Premier League highlights rights. Especially after the events of this year, this maybe a surprise for some. 

The article also reports that Apple TV will not bid for live rights in the upcoming tender; they are only interested in acquiring global rights agreements.

www.dailymail.co.uk 

Well would look quite political if they didn't.   That may be less of an issue for them moving into the next contract period anyway.

Salary wise presumably given what they've justified paying Gary anyone stepping into his role would be expected to be close to that anyway - and if was was Gabby Logan for example considering she is of similar experience it would not be a good look to offer her less than the man in the role before her.

[thegeek]

Taken me a while to remember this but when BT first got that package (which wasn't selling at first), they managed to negotiate it to one and a half midweeks with five extra games over the "winter break" split weekend. But for various reasons including the winter World Cup, that break hasn't happened for about half of the seasons it has supposed to so far.
Further complication is that one of BT/TNTs "midweeks" is usually the New Year's extra set of games but this year that's a normal weekend.

aha, that would make sense. I don't think there was anything that said that one of the midweeks had to be the New Year's Day set, but it was a good gimmick for the first season of the rights deal - especially on the back of Amazon's two midweeks in the prior month.

Of course, having started in 2019/20, there's not really been a 'normal' season since them, what with Covid and the World Cup, and I think BT found that trying to do match and pres coverage of 9 matches on the same day is no mean feat. I can see the appeal in them spreading them out a bit - not least because it means you're not cannibalising your own audience by showing several simultaneous matches.