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

[Chad]

BT only have access to SKY Sports 1 and SKY Sports 2 at the moment. I can see SKY finding ways to justify moving some Premiership games over to SKY Sports 3 and SKY Sports 4 to due "broadcasting clashes". This of course would also mean Virgin customers couldn't watch the games in HD.

[Chad]

BT and Sky kick off pub sports price war

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db41c2b0-a...#axzz2QU52ecqj

BT will significantly undercut the pricing of Sky subscriptions for pubs as the telecoms group attempts to snatch some of the £300m market for its new sports channel launching this summer.

BT will use Sky’s own platform to show its content, which includes Premier League football and rugby, in pubs where annual subscriptions for the much fuller Sky sports package can easily run into five-figure sums.

Sky has already offered some large pub groups heavy discounts of up to 30 per cent, people with knowledge of recent negotiations told the Financial Times.

The offers mark the first time in two decades that the powerful sports rights holder has been willing to give substantial discounts.

Pub and club subscriptions account for between £200m and £300m of BSkyB’s annual revenues, according to analysts. Most of this drops straight down to the company’s pre-tax profit due to the cost of the rights being fixed.

Sarah Simon, media analyst at Berenberg, said: “This is a very vulnerable profit stream because the revenues are so high-margin. Pubs will leap at some competition from BT because Sky increases the price so aggressively every year.”

The head of one pub chain said of Sky: “They have been fiercely arrogant up until now.”

BT is no longer willing to consider a wholesale agreement with Sky to show its pubs sports as part of the wider Sky Sports broadcast, and will sell to pub customers directly on Sky’s own platform over two channels. As part of this strategy, BT will sell subsidised satellite dishes and boxes to pubs and clubs that do not already have the Sky equipment.

BT estimates that about a fifth of pubs do not show any sport, while half only show free sports on terrestrial TV, which represents a key market for the company given its cheaper sports packages. About a third of pubs show Sky Sports.

Bruce Cuthbert, director for commercial customers at BT Sport, said that the service would be “substantially cheaper” than Sky subscriptions, which are based on business rates.

The tariff leaves pubs facing a large subscription bill even if they are not a specialist sports bar. One pub in west London faced an annual bill of £40,000 for a subscription, despite only having two small screens.

Mr Cuthbert said that BT sports would be a “lighter” product to appeal to pubs that want a little extra but not pay for the full Sky package. “There is a market that previously has not had sports,” he said.

A spokeswoman for BSkyB said: “For more than a year now – and pre-dating the purchase by BT of any rights – our strategy has been to extend our reach into a broader range of outlets via additional pricing options, and to deepen our relationships with existing customers with the rollout of WiFi and great events like the forthcoming Ashes Series.”

Last summer, BT paid £738m for the rights to 32 Premier League football games per season for three years in order to bolster its TV service and compete directly with Sky with bundled offers of TV and broadband. It has since acquired the rights to live Premiership rugby matches and WTA live tennis, and is expected to announce several other smaller deals when it launches the service next month.

BT has the first pick of 18 Premier League games – as well as 28 games at Saturday lunchtime, which Mr Cuthbert said would give pubs the chance to create a “regular appointment to view” for their customers. Rugby premiership games will also be shown during the week, he said.

To be fair, most pubs will care about the Premier League and Sky has 3x as many games.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

To be fair, most pubs will care about the Premier League and Sky has 3x as many games.

I agree with you on that however over the past 18 months pubs have been closing at rate of almost 18 per week. I've lost 3 pubs in the past 6 months where I live. Pubs need to cut their cloth accordingly to keep their doors open. SKY appears to be a very greedy monster in terms of pub subscriptions however people want to watch sport when having a pint.

Whilst BT can't offer as many regular games as SKY, their portfolio of sports do offer a cheap alternative that pubs struggling financially might consider. Pubs will also be able to offer plenty of free to air football too such as Scotland internationals on BBC Scotland, England internationals on ITV, FA Cup on ITV, Champions League and Europa League on ITV, Scottish Cup on BBC Scotland plus coverage of both the English and Scottish League Cups on the BBC too.

A pub offering BT Sports, Premier Sports, Boxnation, Eurosport and all free to air sports action on the BBC and ITV including the likes of Wimbledon and The 6 Nations might only cost a fraction of what SKY charge but offer so much more in content variety.

[colin25]

Let the pubs shut...too many anyway

if they want drink..let them eat cake

[denphone]

Originally Posted by cityfan247

the cost of watching sports on tv is going up- or i should say the cost of watching the greed is king Premier League is driving the cost up. Aren't we still in the midst of a worldwide economic recession ? Appears to have no impact on the world of football.

I currently subscribe to Sky Sports (& movies) but am increasingly looking at having to cut back as everything is going up apart from my wages. I'm already paying over £100 pm for my virgin service (as i am sure many other on here are to)- thats over £1200 per year- it's a bit crazy really. I've already downgraded my BB and telephone and scrapped my HD premier channels subscription.(well you dont even get all the Sky Sports HD channels anyway- thanks Sky!) You get to the point where its hard to justify the outlay.

The prospect of having to fork out more for BT Sports well i am increasingly thinking i probably wont. If they charge say £15pm as some think and another £25pm + for sky sports- thats the best part of £500 per year to watch sport on tv. crikey.

You can see why more and more are looking at shall we say 'alternative' ways to watch live sports.

Summed up perfectly.

[denphone]

Talks between BT and Sky over sports TV rights reach stalemate.

http://www.cityam.com/article/talks-...each-stalemate

TALKS between BT and Sky over TV rights have stalled, raising the prospect that BT customers will not have access to Sky Sports channels.

Ahead of the launch of BT’s sports channels this summer, the two companies are locked in discussions over distributing each other’s content on their own platforms but have so far been unable to agree over pricing.

BT has pledged that its content, which will include 38 Premier League football games per season from September, will appear on the Sky platform whether or not the parties clinch a wholesale deal that would see the channel sold through Sky. However, the two parties have also not come to an agreement over broadcasting Sky’s sports channels on BT’s platform.

The satellite broadcaster currently sells its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to customers of other broadcasters, such as TalkTalk and Virgin Media, as well as BT’s Vision service. However, a recent competition ruling means that Sky is now not required to offer Sky Sports to other broadcasters, and in the face of an increasing threat from BT, it could choose to stop selling the channels.

[johnasimmons]

I wonder if VM will make a deal with BT for their channels or BT will go it alone...

[denphone]

Originally Posted by johnasimmons

I wonder if VM will make a deal with BT for their channels or BT will go it alone...

My own hunch is l think VM will make a deal with BT.

[andy_m]

Had Bt got what they wanted from the rights auction I think we would have seen them try to go alone and smash Sky's dominance. The fact that they didn't, and paid well over the odds in the process, I think means Virgin are in a reasonable position to agree carriage deals. On what terms, however, is currently anyone's guess.

[muppetman11]

If Dens link is to be believed you'd have to question how popular BT Vision would become if an agreement wasn't reached for the Sky Sports channels especially as no agreement is in place for the Sky Entertainment channels as of yet , my feelings are at the moment that the two behemoths are just sparring with each other and an agreement will be reached at some point.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by denphone

Talks between BT and Sky over sports TV rights reach stalemate.

http://www.cityam.com/article/talks-...each-stalemate

"The satellite broadcaster currently sells its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to customers of other broadcasters, such as TalkTalk and Virgin Media, as well as BT’s Vision service. However, a recent competition ruling means that Sky is now not required to offer Sky Sports to other broadcasters, and in the face of an increasing threat from BT, it could choose to stop selling the channels."

I didn't know this. Didn't I read recently that SKY are stalling talks with Virgin in regards to a new carriage deal for SKY Sports until they know what kind of deal BT agree with Virgin?

Just think of the potential ramifications. If BT and Sky don’t agree a mutually acceptable deal, SKY could very well pull SKY Sports off the BT platform. If BT and Virgin agree a deal for BT sports to go into the XL package, SKY could pull SKY Sports off the Virgin platform. That would mean the only place to get all football fixtures would be SKY as BT have already confirmed their channels will definitely be on the SKY platform.

Whilst people might suggest SKY will never do this due to lost revenue, I think it’s a real possibility. SKY could offer SKY Sports directly to BT customers via NOW TV. SKY could also restructure their pricing for SKY Sports to attract customers from both BT and Virgin.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

In that same article Sky blame BT and say they are happy to share.

Yeah, yeah....

[denphone]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

If Dens link is to be believed you'd have to question how popular BT Vision would become if an agreement wasn't reached for the Sky Sports channels especially as no agreement is in place for the Sky Entertainment channels as of yet , my feelings are at the moment that the two behemoths are just sparring with each other and an agreement will be reached at some point.

Yes lets hope they are sparring with each other because if they are not the ramifications for us all could be significant.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chad

SKY appears to be a very greedy monster in terms of pub subscriptions however people want to watch sport when having a pint.

Whilst BT can't offer as many regular games as SKY, their portfolio of sports do offer a cheap alternative that pubs struggling financially might consider. Pubs will also be able to offer plenty of free to air football too such as Scotland internationals on BBC Scotland, England internationals on ITV, FA Cup on ITV, Champions League and Europa League on ITV, Scottish Cup on BBC Scotland plus coverage of both the English and Scottish League Cups on the BBC too.

A pub offering BT Sports, Premier Sports, Boxnation, Eurosport and all free to air sports action on the BBC and ITV including the likes of Wimbledon and The 6 Nations might only cost a fraction of what SKY charge but offer so much more in content variety.

Yes, I agree with that assessment. Those pubs who are questioning the value of the Sky deal may well decide to 'downsize' to make this a more viable proposition, and pubs that don't currently provide premium sports viewing may decide to do so at the lower price. This could impact on Sky significantly. It'll be interesting to see how they respond.

---------- Post added at 13:21 ---------- Previous post was at 13:10 ----------

Originally Posted by Chad

"The satellite broadcaster currently sells its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to customers of other broadcasters, such as TalkTalk and Virgin Media, as well as BT’s Vision service. However, a recent competition ruling means that Sky is now not required to offer Sky Sports to other broadcasters, and in the face of an increasing threat from BT, it could choose to stop selling the channels."

That was not my understanding of the current position. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...kyb-sky-sports

---------- Post added at 13:24 ---------- Previous post was at 13:21 ----------

Originally Posted by Chad

Whilst people might suggest SKY will never do this due to lost revenue, I think it’s a real possibility. SKY could offer SKY Sports directly to BT customers via NOW TV. SKY could also restructure their pricing for SKY Sports to attract customers from both BT and Virgin.

No, I don't think that the regulators would permit Sky to do this. The position currently is that BT will deal with Sky customers directly rather than through Sky.

However, the position with Virgin Media is now interesting. If VM do a deal with BT which enables the cable operator to offer its BT Sports channels at a discount compared with Sky, then Sky might think again about its strategy and BT might yet get their way. We could even get a 'loss leader' arrangement that will force Sky to play ball with BT and give them what they have asked for.