The Premier League will release next season’s fixtures on Thursday morning, just before the World Cup really gets underway with its first game the very same evening.

Football fans all over the world will be watching the action in Russia, but as the sport’s truly global league, fans everywhere will be captivated by the announcement of their club’s fixtures for next season. As the slate gets wiped clean a sense of hope and optimism for a good season pervades.

The Premier League are hoping that the long hours of anticipation on the morning of the tournament will stoke the fires of the World Cup fever fans are currently suffering from. And as a result gain more traction for the fixture, even though it’s already a major media event.

The English top division is not the first to announce its fixtures, though, despite the fact that the season has barely ended (or hasn’t yet ended, if you think that the World Cup is the finale to a long year).

???? Le calendrier 2018/2019 de la @Ligue1Conforama est sorti ! ????
Recevez en exclusivité celui de votre club et tentez de gagner un pack supporter (2 places pour le match de votre choix et le maillot de votre club de coeur) ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/qk0cWMNnIK

— Ligue 1 Conforama (@Ligue1Conforama) June 7, 2018

France’s Ligue 1 has also announced its fixtures for the 2018/19 season, and they did so with a bang on Twitter.

The league ensured that none of its fans on the platform would miss either Ligue 1’s announcement or their team’s fixtures by creating an automated reply to any fan who specifically asked for their team’s fixtures by using a special hashtag.

By tweeting #CalendrierX (for example, #CalendrierPSG) and tagging @Ligue1Conforama Twitter users received a graphic with their side’s fixtures for the season in reply. It was innovative, informative, and at its heart it was a service the league managed to provide for its fans. More importantly, it ‘just worked’.

Tomorrow’s Premier League announcement will be widely covered. It is an event media outlets are gearing up for and planning for, and coming on the opening day of the World Cup, it will get major coverage from a football hungry pack of figuratively starving dogs.

Ligue 1’s tactic worked brilliantly – now it’s your move, Premier League.

EDIT one: Shortly after publication of this article, the Premier League tweeted this:

????#PLfixtures release announcement ????

Hit RT and we’ll send the fixtures directly to you when they’re announced tomorrow ???? pic.twitter.com/XBt8Pa3ocf

— Premier League (@premierleague) June 13, 2018

Keep an eye out tomorrow morning to see what other goodies the Premier League has in store!

EDIT two:

The fixtures have been announced and the league’s Twitter account replied to all of those who retweeted yesterday’s tweet: the information included was a link to all of the fixtures for every team, rather than the personalised social media activity that Ligue 1 had put out.

In the end, though, isn’t sorting through heaps of fixtures all part of the fun of fixture announcement day?

@CJMcMullan_ All of next season’s fixtures are right here ???? https://t.co/iQKSNaf596

Which fixture are you most looking forward to? Reply and let us know with #PLfixtures pic.twitter.com/sKFv29XzWr

— Premier League (@premierleague) June 14, 2018