BT Sport wins Champions League contract

[g3org3y]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24879138

Not good news for those who only have terrestrial.

In fact, not good news for Sky users either unless they want to pay more and upgrade to BT.

Edited by g3org3y on Saturday 9th November 12:36

[z4chris99]

sky are going to have to reduce their fees..

not all rugby, not every prem game, no champs league

[obob]

Not good, BT sport are st. Hopefully they can nab all the sky sports team. But they'll just nab carragher and stick him with the rest of the st they already have

[Cheib]

From what I have read there each English team will have one free-to-air match per competition and the final will be too.

This has got big implications for the next Premier League contract. Football is the absolute corner stone of Sky's strategy, they simply can't afford to let BT get the lions share of that contract.

Interesting times for Sky as IPTV is really the way forward...the sky boxes and sat dishes could well be redundant in 10 years in urban areas and even sooner if BT get the PL rights.

[London424]

I'm not sure how BT managed to get the "underdog" tag when they have 18 billion a year revenue and 2.5 bn a year profit.

In comparison Sky have 7.3 and 1.3 respectively.

BT could have done this long ago and have a huge pot for more sport if they want to really try and blow sky out if the water for the premier league when it comes back up for negotiation.

[hilly10]

Will start looking to knock Sky on the head. This season already they have lost the Saturday lunch match. which was one I looked forward to

[Cupramax]

How do you win something by paying £897m? theyve bought the rights, not won them.

[MissChief]

And, IMO vastly overpaid. Viewing for CL matches is around half of the EPL matches according to Sky unless two british teams are involved. For the m,atches where there are no British teams playing then viewers are often measured at under 200,000. BT seem to think the CL will be some sort of big draw but personally I doubt it will be. ALso I'm sure they said one GAME free per season, not one game from each club that has qualified. Besides, it could be Arsenal Vs Shaktar Donetsk away that's free while the two other teams in the group are AC Milan and Real Madrid. AND the CEO admitted they will start charging a subscription when the CL comes to BT sport in the 2015-16 season and wouldn't be drawn on how much, only that it would be cheaper than Sky. Of course they could increase BB charges to £20 a month for unlimited and increase Line Rental by £2 and then say it's 'only' £10 a month!

While some people say that Sky's 'stranglehold' on European football is 'bad' I can guarantee that any Football fan that wants to see all the matches will end up paying more. They already do. ESPN prior to this season was £9 a month if you had Sky Sports and £12 if you didn't. BT SPort alone on Sky is £12 as the basic channel package, £15 if you want it in HD.

[Victor McDade]

MissChief said:

While some people say that Sky's 'stranglehold' on European football is 'bad' I can guarantee that any Football fan that wants to see all the matches will end up paying more. They already do. ESPN prior to this season was £9 a month if you had Sky Sports and £12 if you didn't. BT SPort alone on Sky is £12 as the basic channel package, £15 if you want it in HD.

When the European Union objected to what it saw as a monopoly a few years ago it then meant, if we wanted to see as many PL games as possible, we had to pay for both Sky and Setanta (then ESPN and now BT Sport) hence increasing costs. It was better when this so called monopoly existed. The ruling by the EU was supposed to ultimately benefit the consumer which it clearly hasn't.

[RobGT81]

Not great news. At least the Sky football pundits are decent, Neville is the best pundit out there. The BT sports coverage is just ste. Did anyone watch the UK UFC show? No one cares if we get to watch Man City vs weallygivesafk FC in the qualifying rounds for free.

The Mrs will be happy, I guess they can put an extra episode of Corrie on during the week now

[ascayman]

This does two things:-

1) Stitch up the consumer (we get to pay for two channels rather than one now)
2) Create a bigger gulf between the top 4 and the rest.

One day money will be the death of this great game.