Need to know
In 2025, the Premier League has moved away from its traditional full slate of Boxing Day fixtures, leaving Manchester United vs. Newcastle United as the only match on December 26
Why is there only one Premier League match on Boxing Day?
- UEFA competition expansion: The expansion of the Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League to 36 teams has significantly squeezed the available dates in the football calendar. This increased volume of midweek matches has forced the Premier League to find alternative slots for its own domestic rounds.
- The Friday calendar constraint: In 2025, Boxing Day falls on a Friday, which presents a specific challenge for standard weekend broadcast slots. Because the league is committed to a set number of weekend fixtures, most games were moved to Saturday and Sunday to maintain a traditional weekend structure.
- Domestic broadcast contract obligations: The Premier League is legally bound by its £6.7 billion domestic TV deal to provide at least 33 full weekend rounds to its primary broadcasters. Moving the majority of matches to Friday, December 26, would have prevented the league from counting that period as an official weekend round under these contracts.
- Amazon Prime’s rights expiration: In previous years, Amazon Prime Video held the rights to show every single Boxing Day match simultaneously. However, starting with the 2025/26 season, those rights have expired, and the games have returned to Sky Sports and TNT Sports, who operate on a staggered broadcast model.
- Player welfare and recovery windows: New agreements with clubs guarantee that no team will play two matches within 60 hours of each other during the festive period. Spreading the fixtures across Friday, Saturday, and Sunday ensures that every squad receives the mandatory recovery time between Gameweeks 18 and 19.
- The Saturday 3pm blackout rule: By moving seven games to Saturday, December 27, the league must abide by the historic UK blackout which forbids broadcasting live football between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. This means that unlike the “every game on TV” Boxing Days of the past, many of this year’s festive matches will not be televised in the UK.
- Travel and public transport logistics: With limited public transport available on Boxing Day, scheduling only one late-night match (8pm) helps mitigate travel chaos for fans and stadium staff. Concentrating the bulk of the fixtures on Saturday allows for a more functional transport network to support the hundreds of thousands of travelling supporters.
- Priority for the FA Cup schedule: The league has made a renewed commitment to providing exclusive weekend windows for the FA Cup, thereby maintaining the prestige of the knockout competition. This dedication further reduces the flexibility of the Premier League’s December schedule, leaving no room to pull more games onto the Friday holiday.
- READ MORE ABOUT THE ONLY BOXING DAY FIXTURE BETWEEN MANCHESTER UNITED AND NEWCASTLE HERE: How Man Utd can line up without Bruno Fernandes as Ruben Amorim makes transfer stance clear
