As the battle over sports rights heats up in Australia the Murdoch linked Sky Sports has agreed to pay A$6Billion for a three-year deal to show 128 English Premier League soccer matches a season from 2019/20, less than it paid for its current broadcast deal.

Rival BT said it had agreed to pay A$1.6 billion to show 32 games a season for three years, after five of seven packages were auctioned overnight in the UK.
In total, the companies will pay $6.2 billion to secure the rights for 160 games a season for three years.

The auction of two further packages of 20 games each a season had not finished, with interest from multiple bidders, the Premier League said.

The amount raised so far, however, is below the $8 billion raised in 2015 for three-year packages to show 168 games a season.

What is not known is whether the Australian rights which are currently held by Optus, will return to Foxtel.