The BBC has struck a £180m deal to secure the Premier League highlights for a further three years, ensuring that Match of the Day passes 50 years on TV.

The BBC submitted a £179.7m bid to secure the UK free-to-air highlights rights for three seasons from 2013/14 to 2015/16. This represents a 4.5% increase on the £172m the BBC paid for its existing three-year deal.

The rights cover BBC1's Match of the Day on a Saturday evening, which is fronted by Gary Lineker, the Sunday morning repeat as well as Match of the Day 2 on Sunday evenings. The deal extends to "other evenings when Premier League fixtures justify a show".

"It is wonderful news that we have MotD for another three years," said Lineker. "It is a flagship programme and it shows how much the BBC values sport and the importance of football."

Under the terms of the deal Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2 will be available to view via the BBC's iPlayer online TV service from midnight on Mondays.

"We're absolutely delighted that the TV highlights will continue to be available to licence fee payers," said Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport. "The new contract will see MotD celebrate its 50th birthday and extend coverage to the end of the 2015-16 season."

Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, said the free-to-air highlights deal is "extremely important" to extend the reach of the competition beyond the BSkyB's pay-TV subscriber base.

"It allows the competition and our clubs to be seen by the maximum possible number of fans across the country," he said.

Match of the Day was first broadcast on 22 August 1964 on BBC2 and featured a single match – Liverpool beating Arsenal 3-2.

It was first aired on BBC1 in 1966 following the surge in popularity after England won the World Cup. The first colour broadcast was in 1969, once again featuring Liverpool who beat West Ham at Anfield.

Securing the football highlights deal is important for the BBC, which has been forced to become a more selective bidder after a 15% rights budget cut as part of director general Mark Thompson's delivering quality first cost-saving programme.

In April, the BBC aired its last Grand National after more than 50 years of coverage. It shares the TV rights to Formula One with BSkyB and the World Professional Darts Championships with ESPN, and lost the French Open tennis to ITV.

The Premier League is aiming to wrap its £3.5bn-plus auction of UK and international rights by the middle of next month.

Speculation surrounds which bidders are likely to enter the "blind auction" with rumours that Al-Jazeera, which holds football rights in France, ITV and even digital giants such as Google and Apple may be interested in a slice. Channel 4 is not interested.

Under the current deal, the lion's share of UK pay TV live rights are held by BSkyB, which paid £1.62bn for 115 of the 138 live matches. ESPN paid about £160m for the remaining 23.

ESPN also holds mobile rights, while Yahoo exploits online clip rights.

Overseas rights, which will be agreed later in the year, netted the Premier League about £1.4bn under the current deal.

The Premier League has restructured the next rights deal, which will run for three seasons from 2013-14, with a bigger offering of 154 live games.

The matches will be sold in five packages of 26 games and two of 12.

No single broadcaster will be allowed to control more than 116 matches, which would allow BSkyB to maintain its current scale, but will mean that there are 38 matches that could go to rivals.

This is 15 more than under the current deal.

This means that the Premier League is likely to make more money on the auction. – analysts' forecasts put the increase at between 10% and 20% – and that rival broadcasters will have a much better chance of monetising the games.

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