Current PL TV rights deal to continue until 2025
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There’s been no sign of any of the big tech companies having any major interest in football in the UK. Even Amazon’s deal was the tranche of games that Sky and BT didn’t want and was likely a low ball offer too. I’m not sure if Facebook/Meta or Google even have any interest in it. The only real possibility to me is the PL doing it themselves but the setup costs along would be in the billions.Why?This news (or DAZN's struggles generally) has nothing to do with what consumers want. In the UK and US they're struggling because they haven't been able to purchase top tier sports rights. Until they can get the PL and or CL over here or one of the major leagues in the US, they're not going to attract enough subscribers to have a viable business.
It might (probably at this rate) not be DAZN but a streaming service taking over the broadcasting rights for PL football over is coming. DAZN have already got the rights in Italy for Serie A, Amazon have done it in France. Sooner or later Amazon (or even the PL themselves) will blow Sky & BT out of the water.
There clearly was interest - they purchased two packages of games and agreed to the rollover of that deal. They were obviously just testing the water to begin with but since then they have now gone on to purchase the rights to almost all Ligue 1 rights in France. We also know that DAZN wanted to bid for the PL rights (that were rolled over) and have been in negotiations to purchase BT!
And you cannot say people don't want to watch on tablets or via Smart TV apps. How many people subscribe to Netflix in the UK? Around 12m if a 30 second google is correct - that's a hell of a lot more than the number of subscribers Sky Sports and BT Sports have combined.
These tech company's are coming and the PL already cannot wait for the next rights sale. Amazon are expanding more and more into live sport, BT now have deeper pockets than before and they and Sky will fight tooth and nail to keep the cornerstone of their business.
I can't comment on BT but we used to get figures about viewership on Sky occasionally and this included a breakdown of device on Sky Go. Often PC or Mac would be under 6 figures, sometimes less than 50k, mobile or tablet often in the 150-200k but this counts even someone just watching a few minutes, not the whole game. A big game featuring the top four towards the end of the season regularly brought in over a million TV viewers. I think City/Liverpool one year was 1.3m.
Given the last set of rights prior to Covid was actually a reduction compared to what went before and BT and Sky are far more cordial with each other than they were previously I'd be surprised if there was a big increase. There may not be any increase at all! Overseas rights will likely rise though and it may be here that Amazon or Google want to get involved.
Lol, Sky GO the worst app in the world that you can install on about 4 devices on the planet due to DRM restrictions. The figures are rubbish as the access is rubbish, it is that simple. Stop pulling the wool over your own Sky loyal eyes and come back to the real world, people want access across devices easily, not just on a 50" TV via a fixed satellite connection.
I have no doubt that a satellite tv platform has a greater proportion of their viewership through their tv than via apps or tablets - TV is their main product and where they've focused their time and money. That doesn't mean consumers won't watch via Apps or mobile devices though and Netflix is proof of this.
If it's just BT and Sky bidding for the domestic rights in 3 years then yes, it's very possible that there won't be an increase but the hope and expectation from the PL is there will be more competition. The BT/Discover deal raises the prospect of BT going harder than before. Who knows if DAZN are still around (in the UK) in 3 years but we know they wanted the rights and it's reasonable to believe there's a decent chance of Amazon making a bigger play than before - as I said they've stepped things up with Ligue 1 rights in France since the last PL sale. Overseas rights are already increasing - the PL didn't (and probably couldn't) roll these over and they've been finalising these in recent months for the 2022-2025 cycle and there's been some very big increases.
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It will be funny though if Eddie has to slink back to Sky with his tail between his legs
They've signed a 4 year deal with Boxxer. He may end up on Channel 5It will be funny though if Eddie has to slink back to Sky with his tail between his legs
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You never know, Amazon might even be interestedThey've signed a 4 year deal with Boxxer. He may end up on Channel 5
Well I am not in that category, so your no one is already disproven, but I do get why you made your comment as what you said is basically skys target market.
Over time more and more people are moving away from traditional broadcast, In 20 years I think the dominant media delivery will be streaming split between VODs and live broadcast. Live broadcast will mostly be news events and sports. soaps, drama etc. will probably be mostly VOD viewed.
The sky business model is crumbling, BT wanted out, and sky are having to keep increasing their base package to subsidise sport subscriptions.
Many have been saying Sky's business model is doomed and Sky is dying for years yet every year they keep pushing more subscribers and their profits go up. Sky have realised that the streaming market is part of their competition which is why they've integrated pretty much all the major apps into their Q box. You can watch D+, Prime, Apple TV, Netflix and many others right there on the box with a button press or single word into the remote. Bt Sport is now an option on your Sky Bill too. The integration is seamless. Sky also has Streaming covered with Now as well. They have their fingers in a lot of pies and have been diversifying from Sport for a few years now. Given the cash reserves Comcast have they can afford to expand again even further. Sky will still be around and they can afford to pay more for the PL football if they want to now they have Comcast behind them whereas previously it was a bit more of a juggling act to bid Billions of pounds.
TBH what is going to cause Sky more headaches is the cost of living going up. When it comes to a stark choice of heating the house or even eating or paying the Sky bill I know which ones is the necessity and which one is the luxury.
For years we were told the PL bubble was about to burst and with the pandemic it was obviously going to happen now, right? European Leagues have taken an absolute battering with their TV contracts but here we are again with the PL squeezing even more money out of broadcasters:
That's a circa 15% increase on the current rights cycle. It's worth adding that as this increase is entirely as a result of overseas rights, the big benefactors will be the sides that finish towards the top of the table.
That's a circa 15% increase on the current rights cycle. It's worth adding that as this increase is entirely as a result of overseas rights, the big benefactors will be the sides that finish towards the top of the table.
Indeed, the International rights and the money it brings in are not distributed equally amongn the teams, they're distributed to league finishing position and, although I'm unsure about this one, a factor of how popular they are internationally I think?
Not quite. International rights used to be distributed completely equally however some years ago the top clubs decided they weren't happy with this, with Liverpool's MD at the time saying nobody in Malaysia were paying to watch Bolton. After some years of arguing a compromise was reached 3(?) years ago where the value of the International rights then (circa £3bn) would continue to be distributed evenly however any increase above this number would be distributed based on League position.
The distribution of UK tv rights is split 50% evenly, 25% based on League position and 25% based on how many times you're televised in the UK.
It's not going to make a huge difference but very roughly, total tv money (UK and overseas) for the current cycle (2019-2022) was split around 60% evenly and 40% based on League position and or UK TV appearances. This increase in overseas money will result in that split now being nearly 50-50.
Of course it will burst, the argument is a bit like claiming financial bubbles never burst, you have to bear in mind they scrapped the normal bidding process last time out which effectively protected the deals, and of course we dont know when it will burst. But it will happen.
Looking at sky's financial accounts doesnt paint the same picture miss chief painted on here either. Shrinking subscribers offset by rising revenue per customer and alternative sources of income.
Looking at sky's financial accounts doesnt paint the same picture miss chief painted on here either. Shrinking subscribers offset by rising revenue per customer and alternative sources of income.
It's worth remembering that the deals that were renewed on the same terms were actually LESS than the deal before that. My memory is hazy but I think around £50m less across the whole period. Unless Amazon want to get involved more, Facebook shows an interest (looking unlikely atm unless they come to some sort of agreement with the EU over personal data being moved to the US) or Google/Twitter want to get involved I suspect the rights won't increase in value that much, if at all.
Actual, subscriber numbers is a useful Metric it's true, but if you can squeeze more ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit) from each customer you do have you can offset that to a certain extent.
If your point is a literal one and at some point in the next 1000 years the bubble could burst then fair enough but if we're talking in the short to medium term then I very much doubt it. In fact I'd go one step further and say that looking forwards to the next 3-9 years, I cannot see anything other than big increases in the value of TV rights.
When you look at the value tv rights for US sports, the PL's £3.5bn per season looks cheap. The NFL get around double that and the PL's global audience dwarfs that of the NFL. The scope for greater revenue from overseas rights is massive (as seen by the huge increase in the middle of a pandemic) and the situation in the UK, looking forwards, has never been better for the PL.
For most of the 30 odd years of the PL era Sky were the only big player at the table. We had ITV digital and Setanta for the odd year pushing them and then more recently BT came to the table and made it a 2 horse race and it's no coincidence that we saw a big rise in the value of the rights when they came along. It's not just Sky now and it's not just Sky & BT. BT are going to have even deeper pockets moving forwards if and when their Discover deal is done and there's a very real prospect of Amazon and or another big tech company going big. As I've said several times, Amazon are actively increasing their sports rights, as are DAZN in other markets - it would be foolish to think they're not interested in taking a big(ger) chunk of the UK rights.
The PL will squeeze every penny out of the broadcasters and once they've taken every penny they can get, then they'll play their joker and launch Premflix. If it's not already ready, the technology will be ready sooner rather than later and the PL know they could go it alone and generate (far) more money than they are now.
And you've brought the rollover of the existing UK rights deal up before but I still have no idea what you're getting at. There was no scam and no indication that the value of the rights would have dropped significantly, if at all. Sky, BT and Amazon wouldn't have agreed to it if there was. There was just as likely to have been an increase in the value of the rights as a decrease and any decrease would have been relatively small had it happened, and more than covered by the increased overseas rights.
The Premier League don’t seem that interested in launching their own service, at least not yet. You’d think they would start winding down rights, especially foreign rights, if they had any secret plans to do so. That hasn’t happened yet.
This is completely untrue. They absolutely do have plans to do this, as confirmed by Richard Masters 2 years ago.
I'm not going to copy the entire article but that quote is from an Athletic article on this topic exactly two years ago. Within the article it also states that the PL board were incredibly close to launching 'Premflix' in Singapore in 2019 however a majority of clubs (no doubt smaller clubs who wanted £5 today rather than the possibility of £5m tomorrow) wanted the guarantee of a straight broadcast deal at the time.
It's very possible that they could launch something in one or more overseas territories in this coming cycle but sooner or later it's going to happen. While the PL are still able to squeeze more and more money out of traditional broadcasters and or Amazon/DAZN etc then we won't see it in the UK or any big overseas market for sometime but it's coming one way or another.