ESPN, the major international sports network, has picked up rights to English soccer’s Premier League in the Caribbean for the remainder of the 2024-25 season after pay-TV broadcaster VertiCast Media terminated its deal a year early.
VertiCast held rights to the English top-flight in the region through this season under a three-year contract but announced that it would not see out the final year of its contract just three days before the start of the new campaign.
This meant rights in the Caribbean were up for grabs for the year and ESPN has now managed to strike a deal to show the remaining 350 matches of the 2024-25 season.
Through the deal, matches will also be made available to subscribers of the Flow TV streaming platform in the region.
On linear television, live Premier League matches will be shown on the existing ESPN Caribbean and ESPN2 channels and the new ESPN Extra offering.
ESPN Extra will offer around six live matches per round, and pre-match and post-match studio shows, press conferences, archive matches, and other shoulder programming.
The new channel is currently available free of charge up to September 15.
Coverage on ESPN will begin when the league resumes after the international break on September 14.
Notable Premier League players from the Caribbean include Aston Villa’s Leon Bailey, West Ham United’s Michail Antonio, Brentford’s Ethan Pinnock, and Bobby DeCordova-Reid of Leicester City.
VertiCast suffered several issues with its Premier League coverage last season with reported blackouts and technical problems experienced by customers on the broadcaster’s CSport television channels and mobile app, dating back to February 2024.
CSport last aired a Premier League match on May 3, two weeks before the 2023-24 season ended.
In a statement issued on August 13 regarding the termination of its rights, VertiCast said: “After delivering the Premier League to fans across the Caribbean, VertiCast Media’s term as the broadcast rights holder for the Premier League has concluded.
“We are proud to have made Premier League matches available regionally and, for the first time, to the widest possible audience through the CSport App, cable channels, and free-to-air television channels.”
