Match of the Day will become available on BBC iPlayer way quicker than usual this season
If you’ve ever − football gods forbid − managed to miss Match of the Day, you’ll know that the football highlights show doesn’t become available to watch on catch-up right after the end credits roll. However, we’ve got some good news for you. From this season, the football highlights show will become available on BBC iPlayer much quicker than it used to.
Starting this weekend, the Saturday night edition of Match of the Day will land on BBC iPlayer at 7pm, and the Sunday night edition (Match of the Day 2) will become available on catch-up from midnight that night − to clarify, that’s the early hours of Monday morning.
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FYI, this season MOTD will be available to watch earlier on @BBCiPlayer from 7pm on Sundays, and MOTD2 from midnight, also on Sunday… ⚽️ https://t.co/dFQkx4ARnX
— BBC iPlayer (@BBCiPlayer) August 5, 2019
It’s great news for football fans who love an early (or late) night on Saturday, and can’t afford to shell out for a Sky Sports or BT Sport subscription.
In previous seasons, the Saturday night episode would go up on iPlayer at midnight on the Sunday night (early hours of Monday) after it aired, and the Sunday night episode would go up at midnight on the Monday night (early hours of Tuesday) after it aired.
The new arrangement is far more convenient. From now on, if you happen to miss Match of the Day on Saturday night, you’ll be able to fire it up on iPlayer on Sunday evening as you eat your dinner. And once it’s over you can look forward to Match of the Day 2.
Essentially, you’ll be able to binge-watch football and football analysis for hours − exactly what Sunday evenings were made for.
Each episode will be available to stream or download until the next episode is broadcast, or for seven days after broadcast − whichever comes first.
In winter, when the fixtures pile up, we tend to get a flurry of special midweek Match of the Day shows too.
However, these will be subject to the old rules, and appear on-demand on iPlayer at midnight the day after they’re broadcast. So a Wednesday episode would be made available on-demand in the early hours of Friday morning.
The BBC has also revealed its Match of the Day team for the coming season, with the new (but very familiar) faces of Peter Crouch, Micah Richards, Tim Cahill and Karen Carney set to join Gary Lineker, Mark Chapman, Alan Shearer, Ian Wright, and all of the other regulars.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
