Photo: Sky Sports
Premier League Opening Day - Photo: Sky Sports

The Premier League season may feel like it has only just finished, but we are already thinking about the new campaign.

The opening weekend of the 2021-22 Premier League season will see defending champions Manchester City travel to north London to take on Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United hosting their bitter rivals Leeds United.

Newly-promoted Norwich City welcome Liverpool to Carrow Road, while Watford host Aston Villa.

Brentford, the other team promoted from the Championship to the Premier League last season, host Arsenal.

The Premier League fixture list is subject to change once games have been selected for broadcast.

Premier League Opening Day: Date and Time

The 2021-22 Premier League season will start on Saturday, August 14 — 34 days after the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.

The season’s curtain raiser will meanwhile take place with the Community Shield between Leicester City and Manchester City at Wembley on Saturday, August 7.

The season will end on May 22, 2022. As usual, all 10 games will kick off at the same time.

Premier League teams debated starting the season on August 7 at a recent shareholders’ meeting, only to decide against the idea given the final of the European Championship on July 11.

Opening Day fixtures in Full:

Date Time Match
14/08/2021 15:00 Brentford v Arsenal
14/08/2021 15:00 Burnley v Brighton
14/08/2021 15:00 Chelsea v Crystal Palace
14/08/2021 15:00 Everton v Southampton
14/08/2021 15:00 Leicester City v Wolverhampton
14/08/2021 15:00 Manchester United v Leeds United
14/08/2021 15:00 Newcastle United v West Ham United
14/08/2021 15:00 Norwich City v Liverpool
14/08/2021 15:00 Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City
14/08/2021 15:00 Watford v Aston Villa

Key Premier League derby dates 2021-22

Here is a handy breakdown of the main derby match dates this season.

Merseyside derby

November 30, 2021 - Everton vs Liverpool

April 23, 2022 - Liverpool vs Everton

Manchester derby

November 6, 2021 - Man Utd vs Man City

March 5, 2022 - Man City vs Man Utd

North-west derby

October 23, 2021 - Man Utd vs Liverpool

March 19, 2022 - Liverpool vs Man Utd

North London derby

September 25, 2021 - Arsenal vs Tottenham

January 15, 2022 - Tottenham vs Arsenal

Premier League 2021/22 Opening Day TV rights – How to Watch Live

Photo: Premier League
Photo: Premier League

The Premier League's TV rights are split between a number of broadcasters, and we've recently had an update on what's happening after the current deal ends with the close of this 2021/22 season.

An "in principle agreement" has been arranged that basically means, subject to formal government approval, Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video and BBC Sport will continue to share rights from the 2022/23 season to the end of the 2024/25 season. The clubs have already unanimously given the league's proposal their consent, it was announced on May 13.

Usually, the TV rights go through a complex tender process and public auction when they're due for renewal. However, the Premier League made a case to the government for an Exclusion Order under competition law, and argued it had "exceptional and compelling reasons" to do this as a result of "the damaging impact of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the English football pyramid".

There may however be some changes outside the UK, with the Liverpool Echo reporting that potential rights-holders in over 40 countries across Europe and central Asia have been invited to tender for rights packages of either three years or six years, starting from the 2022/23 season.

While the Premier League 2021/22 fixture list has been announced, remember that fixtures can and will move due to all sorts of factors such as broadcasting, policing and safety considerations, and clubs' other commitments to competitions like the FA Cup, EFL Cup and European tournaments. In the meantime, here's more info on the various rights-holders:

Live stream Premier League 2021/22 Opening Day on Sky Sport/ Now

Sky usually gets the lion's share of live Premier League games – and it will have 146 fixtures this time around, all broadcast in glorious HD.

There are a variety of Sky Sports viewing options available for new customers. Note that setup fees apply.

If you prefer, you can build your own package starting with the Sky TV and Netflix combo (£25/month for 18 months at time of writing) and add on the channels that you'd like. For example, if you just wanted to add Sky Sports Premier League rather than the complete channel pack (arguably better value if you like watching lots of different kinds of sports), then that's currently £18 per month.

Note that offer prices may change, and new customers are usually offered an introductory subscription – the monthly cost may well go up at the end of the 18-month minimum contract term. If you don't already have Sky, it's also a requirement that you take the base TV package, and as stated above, setup fees may apply.

Sky also notes in its terms and conditions that "prices may go up during your subscription", so be prepared just in case.

Sky has a whopping 11 (Eleven, to go all vidiprinter style for a moment) sports channels. Its offering covers all sorts, from cricket, motor racing (including Formula 1 and Indycar), boxing, NBA, golf, rugby league, women's rugby and netball.

Its non-Premier League football coverage sits on Sky Sports Football, and includes both EFL games and Scottish football fixtures.

Watch Live Premier League 2021/22 Opening Day on BT Sport

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

BT Sporthad the rights to just over 50 Premier League fixtures during the 2020/21 campaign, and will also carry coverage of the UEFA Champions League and Europa League until 2024, following a multi-million-pound rights deal secured in late 2019.

Remember that BT Sport also features coverage from the Bundesliga, and holds rights to Moto GP, Premiership Rugby, UFC and WWE coverage as well. And it will also have the new UEFA Europa Conference League, which will feature Tottenham Hotspur this season.

If you also want BT Broadband, there are a number of viewing options, all of which you can see and sign up for here. There are options to save on its Sport or Big Sport offerings (the latter also bundles NOW's Sky Sports membership).

Contracts for these two packages are available at various price points and run for 24 months, with a £29.99 cost upfront.

Note that BT has also introduced more flexibility to a number of its TV packages, which means you can add certain channel packs (including Netflix, NOW and Amazon Prime) and turn them on and off on a month-by-month basis to fit with your budget.

The BT Sport Pack has four main channels – BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, BT Sport 3 and BT Sport ESPN, and between them they show all the football mentioned above, plus FA Cup fixtures. BT Sport has also made a number of feature-length documentaries exclusively available to subscribers.

Watch live Premier League 2021/22 MatchDay 1 on Amazon Prime Video

Amazon is a relative newcomer to live Premier League coverage. It usually has around 20 matches per season under the current rights agreement, and in 2019/20, it secured all of the showpiece Boxing Day fixtures.

There are some other cool football-related pieces of programming in Amazon's library, including All or Nothing: Manchester City, going behind the scenes of their successful 2017/18 season, and Six Dreams, a fly-on-the-wall look at La Liga in Spain. A new series of All or Nothing has been commissioned for 2021/22, following Arsenal.

It also broadcasts sports including the US Open tennis championships, other ATP World Tour tennis events and NFL games, and has an increasingly broad library of sports documentaries. And you can watch tournaments like the Australian Open via the Eurosport Player add-on.

Amazon Prime (including the Premier League football) is priced at £7.99 per month, although if you've not subscribed before, you can access its services on a 30-day trial period.

BBC

The BBC showed a handful of live Premier League games during lockdown in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons (including its first ever live Premier League Boxing Day game, that most hallowed of fixtures).

However, the corporation is best known as the free-to-air TV home of the league in the UK, with comprehensive digests and analysis of all the key games. BBC Sport has already confirmed this will continue as part of the new "in principle" rights agreement.

So, if you're content to mute the TV and not look at it when they show the scores on the evening news, then there's always late-night highlights on Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2. Here's a little tune familiar to anyone who watched Goal of the Month in a very particular time period.

HOW TO WATCH PREMIER LEAGUE MATCHDAY 1 IN CANADA: TV AND LIVE STREAM

Premier League matches stream exclusively live and on-demand on DAZN in Canada.

DAZN, the first global pure sport live and on-demand streaming service, has the streaming rights for the Premier League in Canada for the 2021-22 season.

DAZN is available on web browsers at DAZN.com and also has apps available for many TV and streaming devices, including:

  • iPhone, iPad
  • Android phones and tablets
  • Amazon Fire Tablet
  • Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick
  • Apple TV
  • Android TV
  • Google Chromecast
  • LG, Sony and Samsung smart TVs
  • Playstation 4 and Pro, Playstation 5
  • Xbox One, One S and One X, Xbox Series X | S

A subscription to DAZN is $20 CAD a month or $150 CAD a year.

CAN I WATCH PREMIER LEAGUE GAMES IN CANADA FOR FREE?

In Canada, DAZN offers new customers a 30-day free trial period. You can learn how to sign up for a free trial here.

The free-trial period includes access to all of DAZN's live and on-demand programming, including Premier League, Champions League, the NFL and more.

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