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Originally Posted by 1andrew1
I very much doubt it will happen or why would WBD bother to acquire 50% of BT Sport?
A combination of Comcast and Paramount is more likely and they do already co-operate in some European territories via the Sky Showtime service.
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The American regulators will never allow that because it would bring two of their big two networks, NBC and CBS, together. Although I guess they could sell one of them, but what would be the point?
A Comcast/WBD makes more sense, especially so in regards to sports rights, because its all about the tech giants now and it has been since Murdoch sold off most of his empire.
Apple, Amazon and Google are serious about sports rights, Mircosoft has yet to show its hand, so a newly enlarged Sky/NBC/WBD may reckon it'll be big enough to compete against Big Tech. But I have always been guided by what Murdoch said when he sold out, and he said he couldn't compete against the tech giants. If he couldn't, neither can any of the other traditional Hollywood/media companies either.
In the States, Apple has already won Major Leaague Soccer rights and baseball rights and I expect Apple to continue bidding for more sports rights in the future. Although, it went head to head with Google over some of the NFL rights currently held by DirectTV, but backed out. Despite Apple's deep pockets, 2 billion dollars a year was too much for them, but not for Google.
Likewise, over recent years, Amazon has been building up significant sports right too. From some NFL rights in the States to UEFA and some premiership rights in the UK. That will just continue.
And finally, bidding for the premier league rights starts this year and Big Tech is going to be heavily invested in that. In this article I am linking below, I found it interesting that eight of the clubs are now 100% American owned.
I have always said the goal is for the Big Tech to bid for global sports rights and so the sports can only be viewed on their respective streamers. It's happening in the States, but at the moment the football rights in the UK are only for UK viewers, but that will change at some point. Paying 10 billion quid a year for some global premierhship rights will seem like small fry in the future, as far as Big Tech is concerned. Sky, Disney, WBD etc cannot compete against that.
https://worldsoccertalk.com/tv/apple...ST-415657.html