[denphone]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I can't see the business case for beIN Sports entering the UK market as they will be squeezed between two large players who have the benefits of pay-TV/broadband to subsidise them. I appreciate beIN is backed by the Qatar government and it has a presence in France but it does own PSG there. If they do, I suspect it will be in co-operation with BT. There have been forum rumours that beIN would buy Setanta or Premier Sports but I'm sure everyone talks to everyone else and not necessarily about merging.
Prices for Sky Sports traditionally go up yearly by a small amount unrelated to Sky's sporting rights costs so I expect this to continue unless it loses significant rights. The last auction saw Sky's Premier League bill go up by 71%. It was unable to pass the costs of this rise onto its subscribers and if rights went up again by this amount I would only expect the small regular rise again.

It might not have passed it on that much on its own platform but that certainly won't be the case when it comes to Virgins platform and its sports subscribers.