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

[ozsat]

I can't see it being more than the current 'BT Sport' + 'Discovery Sport' cost

Originally Posted by 1701-e

To save the pain of clicking on a daily fail link.....


BT Sport will change its name following last year's £650m merger with Eurosport
Broadcasters will announce the creation of several new channels on Tuesday
It is unclear at present how much fans will be asked to pay for the new channels

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by ozsat

I can't see it being more than the current 'BT Sport' + 'Discovery Sport' cost

Except Eurosport channels tend to be on platforms' base packs.

Some questions:

• Brand name - I would expect it to be Discovery Sport
• Channels - I would expect less than the current seven (Five BT, two Eurosport)
• Pricing - I would expect as per BT Sport at the moment (£25-£30)
• Base packs - Eurosport currently offers two channels in the bas packs. There might be a contractural obligation with VM and Sky to keep two channels in their base packs for a little while yet.

[ozsat]

Eurosport and all the extra streams are still running in the Eurosport app and Discovery+.

[Phunkenstein]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Others seem to think it’s achievable.
https://talksport.com/football/11315...-mls-apple-tv/

I like Simon Jordan but those are magical streaming economics in a year where those economics have proven far from magical! It speaks to some of the simplicity in my previous comment.

He says 9.99 but is that the floor globally? 9.99 may be nothing here but it’s very different in markets like India or Africa for example… there’s no way you could price it at 9.99 GBP everywhere.

Also the question is whether there are indeed 100 million people who would specifically pay for a standalone EPL proposition that offers those games outside of a bundle that offers sport or leagues that are far more important in those local markets… I don’t doubt the popularity of the PL but can you guarantee 100 million people paying an average of 9.99 GBP? I don’t think it’s as easy as he says and seems to also miss those differences between markets, the p&a involved and the localisation required before you consider the cost in production and workflow to offer those games weekly at a high quality.

I’m not saying a D2C play is impossible but I still don’t think it happens without a partner bearing the brunt of the production, transmission and promotion. I think it’s hard to compare a tier one property like the EPL to something like the MLS which has still failed to really establish itself as a tier one property in its home market. Apple are paying 250 million for the whole thing globally which is nothing really - it’s a R&D cost for them to see if the model works for a sport and it’s a damn sight cheaper than sinking billions into something like the NFL or NBA. I’m curious to see if it works for the parties involved but MLS ain’t the Premier League!

[muppetman11]

Question do you expect Sky to retain and pay more at the next renewal ?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Question do you expect Sky to retain and pay more at the next renewal ?

Why would they necessarily pay more? They correctly judged the fall in the value of the rights at last proper auction. The current Covid roll over contract will be significantly less in real terms if it doesn’t have a clause to match unprecedented levels of inflation.

I certainly would expect Sky to retain the top rights package, plus a combination of others to give them at least 90-100 games a season.

The stalking horse of Canal+, Al Jazeera, BEIN Sports, ESPN (Disney), BT, Amazon, any other random streamer has always been there.

[Phunkenstein]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Question do you expect Sky to retain and pay more at the next renewal ?

Think it depends on the packages that are put to tender….

I suspect Amazon will make a play for a weekly game and no more than that as it seems entirely consistent with how they are approaching things like CL games, I think WBD/BT will attempt to do much the same…

I think Sky will retain the majority (or at least their core weekend games) and probably pay an increase (though I don’t think it’ll be a dramatic increase) but I’d never presume anything! Think the question for next year is whether DAZN will finally make a big stupid play for the PL though I’m not entirely sure Sky will be as willing to let them take a big position in their core market as they did in Italy (even though that somewhat backfired on DAZN a bit and they ended up doing another carriage deal with Sky).

And as jfman says, there’s always been the shadow of a new saviour coming in to wrest it all away… I don’t think it’ll be any different except everyone will be calling them Apple.

[1andrew1]

I can't see Apple being interested. Global MLS is Apple dipping its toes into sport. Third place in rights is probably going to be a toss-up between DAZN and Amazon with Discovery keeping its second place inherited from BT Sport.

In terms of bidding costs, recent inflation rates will probably lead to an uplift of 13% compared to the last auction.

[Phunkenstein]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I can't see Apple being interested. Global MLS is Apple dipping its toes into sport. Third place in rights is probably going to be a toss-up betwellen DAZN and Amazon with Discovery inbetween.

I have an earlier post where I said much the same about Apple - they probably have little desire to get into short term domestic renewals and probably want to do bigger strategic plays where they essentially own the whole thing.

[TimeLord2018]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Except Eurosport channels tend to be on platforms' base packs.

Some questions:

• Brand name - I would expect it to be Discovery Sport
• Channels - I would expect less than the current seven (Five BT, two Eurosport)
• Pricing - I would expect as per BT Sport at the moment (£25-£30)
• Base packs - Eurosport currently offers two channels in the bas packs. There might be a contractural obligation with VM and Sky to keep two channels in their base packs for a little while yet.

Looks like TNT Sports, a UK trademark applied for November and web domain tntsports.co.uk was taken In October.

Has now been announced internally as TNT Sports
https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Sport...2279117/page/2

[ozsat]

Official release at https://media.discoverysports.com/po...e-for-bt-sport

[TimeLord2018]

Eurosport expected to change to TNT Sports after 2024 Paris Olympics according to broadcastnow
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broad...179517.article

[1andrew1]

Interesting to see the return of the TNT brand to the UK.

I can see the logic in WBD having a different brand for sport than Discovery but I'm sure a lot of pubs will be annoyed with having to update their BT Sport signs and websites to TNT Sports!

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Except Eurosport channels tend to be on platforms' base packs.

Some questions:

• Brand name - I would expect it to be Discovery Sport
• Channels - I would expect less than the current seven (Five BT, two Eurosport)
• Pricing - I would expect as per BT Sport at the moment (£25-£30)
• Base packs - Eurosport currently offers two channels in the bas packs. There might be a contractural obligation with VM and Sky to keep two channels in their base packs for a little while yet.

I expected the Discovery Sports name to be used too, considering there is a Discovery Sports website seperate from the main WBD one.

As for channels, no mention of channels in the press release. Looks like it maybe the the end of the BT and Eurosport channels as the whole lot is put on the streamer and talking of which...

WBD announced only a few weeks ago that Discovery+ would not be merged into HBO Max now and perhaps the pricing issue is the reason.

Who would pay possibly £40+ for a merged Discovery/warner service? Keeping the sports seperate means that those people (like me) who aren't that keen on sports and won't pay for them, may still pay for a sport free HBO Max service in the future.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Horizon

I expected the Discovery Sports name to be used too, considering there is a Discovery Sports website seperate from the main WBD one.

As for channels, no mention of channels in the press release. Looks like it maybe the the end of the BT and Eurosport channels as the whole lot is put on the streamer and talking of which...

WBD announced only a few weeks ago that Discovery+ would not be merged into HBO Max now and perhaps the pricing issue is the reason.

Who would pay possibly £40+ for a merged Discovery/warner service? Keeping the sports seperate means that those people (like me) who aren't that keen on sports and won't pay for them, may still pay for a sport free HBO Max service in the future.

At least I wasn't the only one then!

If WBD did end up marketing an HBO Max app in the UK, I can envisage it providing options to subscribe to entertainment (HBO TV, Warner Bros Films) Sport (TNT) and Factual (Discovery). WBD may be interested in the money from also selling HBO content to Sky but I'm not sure they would be so keen to see it on Now TV, so perhaps not.

I think for the forseeable future, WBD will maintain the linear channels as the benefits outweigh the costs. Particularly as they will need them for the pubs and clubs market. But it's possible that some less popular content will be streamed only to reduce the channel portfolio when the Eurosport brand is dropped here.