General : ESPN, BT, Euro, Premier and Sky Sports news

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

BT will have 4 (HD) channels by July, I can't see a chance in hell of it costing £12.

Then their hopes of succeeding are not good then.

[smallclone]

These are crazy prices. £450 odd a year?

Its a lose-lose situation for them, price too high no-one buys, price too low they bleed money.

I have no idea why they got into this, they're offering it on every platform so how does that entice people to get Vision? If BT charge more on the other platforms, they'll go to Ofcom just like BT did to get the wholesale price.

I can guess Al Jazeera will circling like a shark in a few years.

[cityfan247]

Dont know if i am pleased with ESPN America being part of the BT sports group or not.

For sure BT have spent big money -particularly on Premier League Football- presumably they will want to recoup their investment. While it would be great if it was included in the VM XL pack, like ESPN, this seems highly unlikely.

This is where BT need to be careful in their pricing. These are tough economic times and people , myself included, only have a limited budget on luxuries like TV sports. Sky sports charge £25 + pm- how much extra will people spend for their sports fix.

questions-
how many will be able to afford sky & Bt Sports if BT charge say £12pm or even more.?

How many would choose BT over Sky sports if subscribing to only 1? not that money i would say. This is what has caused Setanta and ultimately ESPN to fail.BT have pretty much the same sports line up as ESPN and Setanta before them- they both failed- what makes BT think it wont. Less and less are subscribing to ALL sports packages due to cost and ESPN (and Setanta) have failed to attract enough people from Sky Sports.

i dont know how many actually pay for ESPN on the Sky platform- not enough it would appear. How many VM subscribers would have paid the extra £ if it wasn't part of the XL pack? One would think BT have experts to crunch numbers as to the viability of its Sports operation and the amount of cash they have put into it in terms of how many subcsribers it needs and how much to charge.

perhaps VM will drop its charges if BT isn't included in the XL pack????

is that a pig flying past my window?

[devilincarnate]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

lesale price.

I can guess Al Jazeera will circling like a shark in a few years.

Who over though?

[Rillington]

Originally Posted by cityfan247

i subscribed to NASN when it started and have had ESPN America when it started up. I paid £10 pm back then but times have changed- it is not the only way to watch North American Sport anymore.

having had a channel for free to then expect people to pay for it will be difficult. Cant see many paying £10 on these days.

Personally even £5 pm might see my stop subscribing. Losing the NFL & NHL rights last year was a BIG disappointment for me. I subscribe to MLB.TV these days so can watch ANY MLB game i wish. As much as i like American sports, and i do follow college sports, is college basketball and football (and some MLB) enough to pay for it? probably not. Some questions would need to be answered first.

When ESPN goes will it transfer its NBA programming to ESPN America ? For me it would have to but as SKY has recently struck a deal with the NBA will it still have the rights?

Will ESPN America get any of its NFL programming again? Last Year ESPN lost its Monday Night Football game to BBC- it also stopped broadcasting its pregame ESPN (US) Sunday shows.

ESPN America HD would be absolutely essential to any pay subscription deal.

so no NHL, no NFL, some college sports ,possibly some NBA some MLB, MLS ? lacrosse ? hmmmmmmm.

as i say i would be sad to end my 10 years + watching this channel but it has to worth it.

Whilst having more tv companies showing sports increases competition it is not good new for viewers. How many people can afford to subscribe to Sky Sports, BT Sports and ESPN America (and maybe Premier Sports)? not too many i would say.

I agree with the comments in your post Cityfan.

In the days of NASN and the first few years of ESPN America, the channel had the entire set of US Sports apart from some NFL and the NFL post season. Since then it has lost its NFL coverage to the BBC and NHL to Premier Sports and shares NBA with Sky so all the channel has exclusively is MLB and the MLB season only lasts for seven months and in recent months the channel has only shown college sports and some second tier ice hockey and as you suggest, virtually nobody would pay extra for ESPN America as it stands right now, not even a fiver a month.

My guess is that it will be part of the three-channel BT Sport package consisting of BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN America and it's unlikely that BT will allow VM to include any of its channels into its XL package although there's a slight chance that they might allow ESPN America to continue in the XL package given that the intention is to retain ESPN America, presumably as it stands now, rather than fold ESPN America into BT Sports.

It will be interesting to see if Premier Sports appears on VM when ESPN stops broadcasting as XL customers right now stand to loose the sporting action that ESPN has provided over the past four years and before then the sport that Setanta used to show, plus also ESPN Classic although that channel was not what it was in the days before it appeared on VM so it's not much of a loss IMO. I somehow don't think that VM will lower the price of the XL package if this happens and overnight VM XL will be far less value than it was before Setanta was added to XL in around 2007.

---------- Post added at 15:54 ---------- Previous post was at 15:48 ----------

Originally Posted by cityfan247

questions-
how many will be able to afford sky & Bt Sports if BT charge say £12pm or even more.?

How many would choose BT over Sky sports if subscribing to only 1? not that money i would say. This is what has caused Setanta and ultimately ESPN to fail.BT have pretty much the same sports line up as ESPN and Setanta before them- they both failed- what makes BT think it wont. Less and less are subscribing to ALL sports packages due to cost and ESPN (and Setanta) have failed to attract enough people from Sky Sports.

i dont know how many actually pay for ESPN on the Sky platform- not enough it would appear. How many VM subscribers would have paid the extra £ if it wasn't part of the XL pack? One would think BT have experts to crunch numbers as to the viability of its Sports operation and the amount of cash they have put into it in terms of how many subcsribers it needs and how much to charge.

perhaps VM will drop its charges if BT isn't included in the XL pack????

is that a pig flying past my window?

All good points.

As you say, what BT currently has is what ESPN has now plus WTA tennis although I think BT will add to its offering in the months ahead depending on what becomes available between now and August.

My guess is that BT Sports will cost £10-£12 per month but it will be interesting to see how much it costs for BT Vision customers.

I for one would not have paid for ESPN if it had not been in the XL pack and like you, I see those pigs flying past the window regarding VM dropping the price of XL in August...

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

I'd have to say so. ESPN (plus America plus Classic) without Sky Sports (I assume Sky subsidizes their own customers) is £12 on Sky, BT are offering way more sport than that.

I agree I'd even say £15 if I'm honest , if that's the price I'm afraid I'm out.

Originally Posted by devilincarnate

Who over though?

BT Sport. They've spent an absolute fortune on the premise that they make the sports money back from the channel subscriptions and make a profit due to the influx of BT Vision customers, but I just can't see them breaking even on sport or drawing a considerable number of new triple play customers.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

I agree I'd even say £15 if I'm honest , if that's the price I'm afraid I'm out.

Same here as there is only so much money in the Mr and Mrs denphone pot.

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

I agree I'd even say £15 if I'm honest , if that's the price I'm afraid I'm out.

Way to much I will be out as well.

[city3000]

If it's not included in the XL Pack (which would seem likely) I don't see myself subscribing to BT Sports even with the addition of ESPNA which is a channel I used to love when it had both MLB and NHL. For me all I would be interested in is the football and MLB (if they have it) and to be honest almost any proposed extra price per month will be too much for me for just that offering.

As it is for me I get more than enough football from Sky Sports and would rather pay extra (which I do already) for MLB.tv.

I don't see BT having enough top end sports rights to take enough customers either away from Sky or added through VM or Sky subscriptions and it will be interesting to see what happens when the PL rights become available again as i'm not sure I can see BT being any more successful than Setanta or ESPN have been.

One thing that I hope could happen though if VM doesn't have BT in the XL pack is maybe add Premier Sports to it. PS clearly doesn't have anywhere near the rights of BT but at least would be some good news for us NHL fans. Probably won't happen though.

[Doug P]

Agreed that I cannot see myself paying over a tenner a month extra for BT Sports. Will stick to Sky and Eurosport.

[Dave42]

will not be paying for bt sports if it a pay channel pay well enough to start with without adding to cost

[andrewbrown]

I think that people are making a mistake thinking that BT Sports are a straight swap for ESPN. The big driver in this is EPL rights, but there are 2 crucial differences:

1. BT Sports have 2 packages where ESPN had 1
2. These include some first choice (e.g. top rated) games, where ESPN didn't.

So, it's a much more even field with Sky Sports than it has been previously. I can't see BTS being less than £15 p/m, but I'm just wondering if SS may drop prices a little to stay competitive? (If there are similar packages, I can't see 1 being priced £10 less than the other).

I'll also hazard a guess that ESPN America will be renamed as simply ESPN, as there will be no need to distinguish it from the European Sport Channel.

[denphone]

Andrew there is no way Sky will drop the prices of their sports packages and more to the point they are likely to put them up again later in the year.