General : ESPN may lose EPL Football(Update)

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by colin25

Suspect there will be a price...curious to see what it will be

Well the extra cost for the football contracts has got to come from somewhere! It will be interesting to see whether VM enters into similar arrangements as it did for ESPN. This would be a very popular move (for Virgin Media subscribers).

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by denphone

And OB your prediction is likely to be spot on.

---------- Post added at 19:27 ---------- Previous post was at 19:26 ----------



Well Colin thats another great idea from the Colin's world of idea's.

It will be interesting to see how VM deal with this situation. Will they be able to do a deal with BT? One thing is absolutely certain football fans will be paying a lot more to watch. I can even see fans saying enough is enough.Interesting times ahead.

Duplicate subject threads merged.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by alwaysabear

It will be interesting to see how VM deal with this situation. Will they be able to do a deal with BT? One thing is absolutely certain football fans will be paying a lot more to watch. I can even see fans saying enough is enough.Interesting times ahead.

VM and Sky will have access to BT's matches however terms will be more favourable on BT Vision in my opinion , they've stumped up big money so surely they'll hope to increase their subscriber base , I wouldn't be shocked if the games are available PPV on Sky/VM/Freeview unless BT plan to snap up more content to warrant a 24/7 sports channel.

[colin25]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Duplicate subject threads merged.

Thank god..it was getting confusing

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

VM and Sky will have access to BT's matches however terms will be more favourable on BT Vision in my opinion , they've stumped up big money so surely they'll hope to increase their subscriber base , I wouldn't be shocked if the games are available PPV on Sky/VM/Freeview unless BT plan to snap up more content to warrant a 24/7 sports channel.

You could well be right about pay per view although I cannot see it interesting enough people to make it profitable. Sky have moved away from PPV in recently.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Yes, that's what I thought would happen. I can't see BT playing Sky's game of monopoly.

We'll get it in HD too, you'll see. (That's my prediction, no source at this stage).

Again, I have no doubt we'll get it.

But how will we get it? As part of XL, or as a premium add-on channel? That's the key question here.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

Again, I have no doubt we'll get it.

But how will we get it? As part of XL, or as a premium add-on channel? That's the key question here.

Well, that we don't know yet. But I think that BT will play a lot fairer than Sky, so I don't have any major concerns at this stage.

However, my own personal opinion is that it will be a similar arrangement to the one currently in place with ESPN, and Setanta before that.

Virgin Media knows that this is a very popular arrangement.

[MaverickJesus]

BT don't have the TV customer base or the financial clout to make this economically viable if they keep it to themselves, they will whore out this deal to all and sundry and use it to slowly build momentum in the premium TV market.

It will be a premium add-on channel, at similar rates to ESPN.

[Emel]

So BT's new sports channel will have one live football match a week during the football season. I think they need a bit more content than that to launch a sports channel.

A lot of sports rights are tied up at the moment, I wonder if there is a struggling sports channel out there they could do a deal with?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

Again, I have no doubt we'll get it.

But how will we get it? As part of XL, or as a premium add-on channel? That's the key question here.

l believe it will be part of XL as Virgin have to much to lose if that does not happen.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Well, that we don't know yet. But I think that BT will play a lot fairer than Sky, so I don't have any major concerns at this stage.

However, my own personal opinion is that it will be a similar arrangement to the one currently in place with ESPN, and Setanta before that.

Virgin Media knows that this is a very popular arrangement.

BT won't care what's popular for VM. They'll care about getting the most money from other platforms for the games they brought. Now, if that's as part of XL, great. If not....

As you suggested, its all speculation at this point. And without speculation life would be boring, no?

[colin25]

Imagine if sky say to BT..we will give you access to our platform..exclusively

[Superblade7]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

But surely BT would make more money converting those VM customers to BT customers? ESPN had no such concerns. EPL footy is a great draw for Pay-TV customers (just ask Sky).

I can see triple-play bundles from BT with cheaper EPL Football (and faster fibre-optic broadband) as a key component.

I'm sure they'd like to draw more customers but you have to remember that both Sky and VM have well established platforms with lots of additional features like TiVo, HD channels access to all Sky Sports & Movies channels and so on.

BT Vision is a glorified freeview box with far less content than either Sky or Virgin and I can't really see the offer of 38 Premier League games making many subscribers switch from Sky or VM but they may encourage new subscribers to join.

Maybe in the future when more homes get BT Infinity and more people adopt Internet TV then maybe they will have a bigger draw but whilst the vast majority continue to use linear channels then Sky will always be king with VM second and BT a fair way behind.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by colin25

Imagine if sky say to BT..we will give you access to our platform..exclusively

Thats not going to happen in a million years.