BT continues to gain ground on its primary competitor Sky Sports after signing a deal with the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) to become the exclusive live TV broadcaster of the Scottish League Cup.

As part of a deal reported to be worth approximately £8 million, BT Sport will broadcast 13 live games including six group stage games and seven matches from the knockout rounds until 2020.

The new deal comes as the SPFL announced a new format for the Scottish League Cup that will take place from the start of the 2016 season. This will see eight groups of five teams play each other once in a round-robin format all set to take place in July.

The group stage will use the traditional three points for a win and one point for a draw but all drawn matches will go straight to a penalty shoot-out whereby the winner will be awarded a bonus point.

All-in-all, the stage will contain 80 games and involve all 38 SPFL teams that aren’t involved in qualifiers for European Cup Competitions, Champions League and the Europa League as well as the winners of the Highland League and the Lowland League.

The head of BT Sport Simon Green said that the deal was pivotal to extending the relationship between the broadcaster and Scottish football.

“BT Sport is thrilled to deepen its connection to Scottish football through this new long-term deal,” he said.

“Our team looks forward to bringing fans an exciting and innovative new competition from July 2016. Today’s agreement expands our summer programming line-up while also giving Scottish football fans an exciting new summer football competition.”

In September, BT Sport signed a deal with the SPFL to broadcast Ladbrokes Premiership matches until 2020.