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Will Football rights affect Sky?
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Apparently the EU Competition Commision is determined to end Sky's monopoly over UK Premiership football rights.
Starting 2007 football season, the EU are demanding that at least 50% of live Premiership matches be shown on terrestrial TV.
Will this affect Sky?
Maybe Sky Sports subs are only a small part of their income. Would be interesting to know how many users of this forum pay for Sky 'clean' of Sport, ie without subscribing to a Sky Sports channel.
Starting 2007 football season, the EU are demanding that at least 50% of live Premiership matches be shown on terrestrial TV.
Will this affect Sky?
Maybe Sky Sports subs are only a small part of their income. Would be interesting to know how many users of this forum pay for Sky 'clean' of Sport, ie without subscribing to a Sky Sports channel.
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Hi
I can manage without the Movies package but NOT sports
It'd be interesting to know, but probably not many.
However I don't think the EC demands that games are terrestrial or FTA, so it could simply be someone else launching a PremPlus type service.
But what happens to the price ?, Sky have already said
"BSkyB has already said it will reduce its bid for football rights if it loses its exclusivity"
See here
http://2mad.co.uk/Main/News/Articles/549ec5492c674c1b80b487518ffaf802/Football%20rights%20row%20rumbles%20on.html
And I can't the terrestrial channels bidding shed loads of ££ , so it looks like the premiership clubs are in for a battering.
Enter the new breakaway European league of top teams
Those poor footballers, how will they survive?
It is unlikely the rights are going to drop by that much. Sky know how much it means to them, and a breakaway "PremPlus" type service, or games on terrestrial, poses little/no threat to Sky in reality. People want to see the top games, not the also-rans.
Chances are the £1bn rights will still be worth £800m, or a loss of £3.3m per club per year. Or £75 000 a week off the wage bill.
Jose Mourinho himself has said you pay a premium for English players. Look how few play abroad? You get more being a middle of the road player in the Premiership than any other league in the world. Hence why Bolton has become a retirement home in the past few years (Djorkaeff, Hierro, etc).
Things will change, but not by as much as they'd have you believe.
This from the Guardian website a year ago:
"Perhaps significantly, Sky agreed to sub-license up to eight "top quality Premier League matches" each season to another broadcaster in order to win European approval. The EC trumpeted this pledge as meaning "that for the first time in the history of the Premier League free to air television will have a realistic opportunity to show live Premier League matches". Such hopes were dashed however when no rival broadcaster met the asking price set by Sky."
Note 'the 'free to air' ref from the EU. :rolleyes:
Seems that's what they're after....
Hi
Well if Sky only have access to win 50% of the packages they will bid less than 50% of their current bid of just over £1 billion .
BBc , Itv and Ch5 wont pay £500 million or anything like for live matches , I can see them fighting for the cheaper option of delayed highlights .
So that leaves Mr Trevor East and Setanta to ride in and make a big bid
Ps
Boltons retirement home is doing ok....AGAIN even without Hierro
With the EU insisting things change here, isn't the french league matches exclusively covered by canal+? Are they demanding they change aswell?
Also, would this maybe give was to various club stations being able to buy matches? i.e. MUTV purchasing some live games?
You will soon see that Villa v Bolton, Middlesbrough v West Ham and Fulham v Charlton will be the live Saturday afternoon fixtures on analogue terrestrial.
Even these games wouldnt be allowed to be shown live on a Saturday afternoon, it'd have to be Sat morning, or evening as UEFA prevent domestic 3pm kickoffs to be shown on TV to prevent a decline in attendances... Sky's build up of the big games means the neutrals have something 'exciting' to watch.. where as the pasionate supporter of a particular team such as Sunderland, for me, will watch Sunderland Vs. The Nags Head pub team if it were on TV...
Yes very good newbie, except that is a different proposition from the EC entirely different to the current one :rolleyes:
Get the latest info, indeed the info the OP refers to, before coming on our forum correcting me and using the sarcastic smiley.
Hi,
I'm not slagging off the job big Sam is doing at Bolton just pointing out the influx of foreign players to the premiership and the lack of English players abroad.
The BBC, ITV and Five are unlikely to pay £500m for rights, that is correct. However with the games in small enough packages they could win some games.
The £1.1bn current package is built from 4 bids, I believe approx 380m, 330m, 230m and 150m.
If there are 4 offerings again Sky will undoubtedly wish to retain the top two, which are worth significantly more than the bottom two. ITV I believe were outbid on the 4th by £10m (a drop in the ocean per club per year) or so by Sky. It is possible ITV or the BBC could agree to bid on different shares of the 3rd and 4th. Could the BBC argue that putting the national sport as digital only somehow helps drive switchover? The politics of the BBC could be as important as the money involved.
It is possible setanta, or the new single cable operator, could pick up games and offer them in the style of PremPlus. Available on all platforms at £50, unlike the current £150 for SkyD but non-sports, £75 for telewest, no option for DTT, could gain a decent number of subscribers over all platforms and succeed. PPV over ADSL could be possible in 2008.
I'm not sure everyone will be falling over themselves for highlights like last time, they have been scuppered by the number of live games plus Sky's Match Choice.
With so much football around not many people are staying in on a Saturday night to watch MOTD.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1584882,00.html
Britain's new cable giant is planning an audacious bid to undercut Sky by offering Premiership football subscription packages for as little as £10 a month.
The company to be formed by the merger of NTL and Telewest is planning to offer an estimated £200m a year [£600m] for Premiership rights if the European Commission rules that no single broadcaster can bid for more than 50% of the games
NTL plans a separate, dedicated Premiership channel, with subscriptions costing around £10 a month.
The cable operator believes the deal for the 2007-10 rights should also include live Premiership matches on free-to-air channels for the first time.
NON football fans will quite rightly moan like a drain when it comes out how much the BBC or ITV have to pay for these live matches, surely C4 or Five cannot even dare think about bidding.
How the hell is £10 a month just for football undercutting Sky?
Wthout been pedantic the current Prem Plus season ticket is priced @ £80 but we get your drift
I guess it depends whether the Eu just wants alternative broadcasters / bidders such as Ntl , Setanta who are not available to the some or Free To Air or Terrestrial broadcasters
Hi
This info
from here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4156138.stm
Seems like one rule for the Uk and another for France
If anyone else wins the rights it'll be available on cable and satellite for everyone. The last thing the league would want is another ITV Sports Channel farce.
If NTL won the rights chances are they'd launch a channel on satellite. It'd be cheaper for cable viewers (a la Sky just now in reverse). If Setanta won who knows we could even see it on TUTV.
They could mean offering Premiership as part of the basic NTL pack :eek:
That'd pull in a few subscribers I suspect.
And millions of people who Don't have Cable or Sat but say only Freeview , how will they benefit / view ?
They may not benefit at all depending on who wins.
But in theory people should benefit because with competition forcing the league to take a lower price the viewer should have to shell out less for Premiership football.
As it stands you have to pay £360, then get PremPlus for £50.
Someone else taking the Premplus games could make it available for £50 to cable customers and Sky customers who don't have Sky Sports 1 and 2. So these people would benefit from it.
The biggest problem the EC have with Sky is the amount they pay, not just the fact it is exclusivity.
Sum of winning bids: £1.1bn
Sum of second bids: £140m (3 packages had no second bidder).
It isn't Rupert Murdoch paying the extra £££s it is the punter. The EU views this as harmful, especially with this being Rip Off Britain and all that.
Do you really believe Sky will reduce their Sports pack prices if they don't get the full monty again ?
Or will it be same price but less for your money