BT Sport to get CL and EL
- Thread starter Azza
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Caporegime
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Has anyone worked out what it would cost the UK consumer to guarantee to be able to watch every single sporting event that they legally can, excluding pay-per-view events like boxing? Compare this to when everyone thing was on either BBC, ITV or Sky and it cost £30 per month. "Competition" in the TV market has hurt the consumer.
Combine this with the rip-off Britain effect = people will use "alternative" sources for their live sport.
Combine this with the rip-off Britain effect = people will use "alternative" sources for their live sport.
But the EPL don't set a price, they conduct an auction for each package?
EU competition rules forbid it which actively encourages other channels. Usually the consumer pays more for everything but it's seen as a 'good thing' for some reason.
Caporegime
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I doubt it's that simple. I don't know the ins and outs of the auction and its mechanisms, but surely they can manipulate the price somewhat behind the scenes. The political machinations of something involving so much money must be very complex.
It's ridiculous really isn't it? Sky won't drop prices, Bt will introduce prices, suddenly I'm paying 2x the cost for the same coverage.
I believe it is that simple. The reason the price escalates is Sky really NEED to have the majority of the Football as it's the lynchpin of Sky Sports. because of this they have to make sure they win all the packages they can (which is all of them but one) in order to keep their Sky Sports subscribers.
It's not always that simple. In the most recent rights sale Sky Germany put in a ridiculously low offer for the German rights as they knew they had no competition. The Premier League were going to refuse to sell the rights for the German market unless Sky Germany increased their bid. There's no prospect of the PL refusing to the UK rights of course though.
The arrival of BT will force Sky's hand anyway. It's clear that BT are going into Football in a big way and I'm sure they're not going to settle on the 2 PL packages they've currently got. It wouldn't surprise me if they go all out for the maximum allocation (5 packages?) next time.
The arrival of BT will force Sky's hand anyway. It's clear that BT are going into Football in a big way and I'm sure they're not going to settle on the 2 PL packages they've currently got. It wouldn't surprise me if they go all out for the maximum allocation (5 packages?) next time.
From the other point of view - Its only relatively recently that BT have been able to provide any content at all, and for the last few years Sky have been eating away at BT's core businees of phone /broadband supply.
The main way to survive now that BT can offer content is to nibble away at Sky's main business itself - ie Sports, and football especially. So to pay ~£300m per year (or £900m over 3 years), which to them is pocket change on the Billions of profit they make every year makes a lot of sense.
Forgotton what the program was called but this was said during the first 20 minutes or so of teh R5L program directly after 606 last night
As I cant get Sky where I live, Im quite glad BT have done this - I just hope my street gets fibre sometime soon, as Im stuck on an 8mb broadband line that usually maxes at under 2mb lol
The main way to survive now that BT can offer content is to nibble away at Sky's main business itself - ie Sports, and football especially. So to pay ~£300m per year (or £900m over 3 years), which to them is pocket change on the Billions of profit they make every year makes a lot of sense.
Forgotton what the program was called but this was said during the first 20 minutes or so of teh R5L program directly after 606 last night
As I cant get Sky where I live, Im quite glad BT have done this - I just hope my street gets fibre sometime soon, as Im stuck on an 8mb broadband line that usually maxes at under 2mb lol
Associate
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I'm glad they put it in graph form otherwise the figures would have been lost on me 
Associate
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Aye, on mates rates too so you won't hear me complaining much
I wouldn't pay for it though if I didn't get it free. I just can't justify the prices for all the packages/matches.
That graph is jaw dropping too.
Good news for BT shareholders, hopefully BT Sport doesn't become another NTL, though if current trends continue and Sky doesn't find a niche market with the upcoming world cup or other events it may be them finding themselves in trouble.
Soldato
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Is it though? Can BT handle actually spending silly amounts on TV rights? Do they have a shed load of money to fall back on if people don't go out of their way to sign up with BT to be able to watch the games?
I wonder if this will start the demise of BT, similar to OnDigital/ITV Digital?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/bt_sports_details/
I wonder if this will start the demise of BT, similar to OnDigital/ITV Digital?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/bt_sports_details/
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Yes and yes. BT showed a £2.4bn profit in their last set of accounts. Just 1 years profit from their current business can comfortably afford to pay for all their sports rights (edit: which are multi year deals) even before you take into account the extra revenue they'll make from subscriptions to BT sports.
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