With fans continuing to be locked out of grounds and forced to watch all the games on TV the Premier League clubs realised that they had a captive audience, in an attempt to recoup some of their lost income, they introduced a Pay-Per-View scheme at the start of October.
That meant in addition to the monthly subscription fees fans had to pay to three satellite broadcasters Sky Sports, BT Sports, and Amazon they had to pay an additional 14.95 to watch games not selected for broadcast by one of those platforms.
The scheme caused outrage from the start, not least because many supporters are under financial pressure following the lockdown and the loss of thousands of jobs caused by the pandemic. At the same time it placed UK supporters in an anomalous position whilst overseas viewers could watch all Premier League games as part of their local subscription packages, those in the UK were expected to watch extra to see some matches in their own country.
Many fans chose to boycott the PPV games altogether, whilst supporters groups came together to run campaigns that all people to donate the money they would have paid to watch the games to local food banks and charities.
Nor was the scheme popular with the broadcasters, who attracted a great deal of negative publicity for providing the service without making any profit for it themselves. They merely covered their costs and passed on the money to the clubs.
The Premier League refused to release viewing figures for the PPV games, but they are reported to have been low, especially for games not featuring one of the bigger clubs.
Now the scheme has been abandoned for now, although attempts may be made to introduce it again in 2021 at a lower price point.
With the UK in national lockdown once more, football is an important distraction for many people, and now they will be able to see all the games over the busy Christmas and New Year period with their existing subscription packages.