May 13 a Historic Day for Premier Football Fans as Fox Broadcasts Nine Live Matches Simultaneously

Every year, on the final day of England’s Barclays Premier League season, all 20 teams from the world’s top domestic soccer competition play each other in a frantic 10-match race for financial survival, hardware and European honors.  This year, on May 13, for the first time in American television history, nine of those matches are being carried live simultaneously by one family of outlets.

The Fox Sports family of networks will be all-in for football on May 13 when, for the first time in American TV history, nine Barclays Premier League matches will be broadcast live simultaneously.

Led by FX, Fox’s fully-distributed cable powerhouse, FOX Sports Media Group (FSMG) networks SPEED, FSN, FUEL TV, FOX Soccer, FOX Soccer Plus and FOX Deportes, along with digital platforms FOXSoccer.com and FOX Soccer 2Go, are carrying all nine matches live at 10 a.m. EST Pre-match coverage begins at 9:30 AM ET on all networks with the exception of SPEED, with all outlets carrying post-match coverage of this hallmark event.

“With so much at stake, there’s nothing like the tension of the Premier League’s final Sunday, and we hope to capture every minute we can using the considerable resources available to the FOX Sports Media Group, including SPEED and FUEL TV, unconventional outlets for soccer,” says FSMG’s Eric Shanks, Co-President and COO.  “Our plan is to provide cut-ins and updates from matches as often as necessary, while never taking the viewer away from the game they’re watching.”

FX, Fox’s flagship general entertainment basic cable network, carried two UEFA Champions League semifinal matches in 2011, and is doing the same this month. FSN, through its 20 owned-and-operated regional networks, has aired UEFA Champions League matches on both a live and delayed basis.

At the end of Survival Sunday, those teams occupying the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth positions are eliminated from the world’s best soccer league and three teams from the second division are promoted to the Barclays Premier League for the 2012-2013 season. Relegated clubs stand to lose upwards of $40 million.

The top four clubs in the Barclays Premier League earn UEFA Champions League qualification, receiving a potential reward of $75 million and the right to play in the world’s most prestigious club tournament. And pending the results of other domestic competitions, the fifth, sixth and seventh places in the Premier League table also carry significance. The holders of those spots at the end of Survival Sunday qualify for the UEFA Europa League, a continent-wide knockout tournament with more than 40 years of history and tradition. Beginning this fall, 2012-2013 Europa League contests are being carried by FOX Soccer and FOX Soccer Plus.