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Football London
Football London
Sport
Josh Challies

Why the Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool streams on Amazon Prime Video will be delayed

It is a busy night of Premier League football, with six games being broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.

The heavyweight clash between Manchester United and Tottenham is among them, along with a Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton and the return of John Terry to Stamford Bridge as Chelsea host Aston Villa.

This week is the first time Amazon Prime have shown Premier League football, with two matches broadcast last night among the 10 live matches this week and all the Boxing Day action later in the month.

This is a first for Premier League coverage, as previously matches have only been available on ‘live’ TV and via traditional channels but it is not Amazon’s first venture into sports, as they have previously shown 41 separate events in the ATP tour - including the US Open and the ATP Finals.

How to watch Premier League football for free over Christmas

While Amazon has improved their sports coverage from their troubles that occurred during the 2018 US Open, where 71 per cent of users rated the coverage one out of five stars, there are some issues that cannot be avoided.

Unfortunately, the biggest one of those will be streaming delays - which means you will see what happens shortly after it has occurred - so you might want to steer clear of Twitter or radio coverage.

While this has been present for some times with TV coverage compared to radio, those delays are fairly short - whereas the Amazon Prime streams could be 45 seconds behind the events in the stadium.

Analysts from streaming firm Phenix said Amazon's broadcast of the US Open was often up to 45 seconds behind the TV transmission. While ways to eliminate streaming lag have been identified, it could take years for that fix to be implemented.

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