Epl tv rights sky vs BT

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So the bbc has retained their right for the highlights after a no contest from itv
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-...

But that still leaves the live match bidding- can sky afford to loose any of coverage they currently have to BT without pricing themselves out of customers?
With BT's expansion in sports coverage and possible acquisition of EE the chance to show more top epl games must have a huge attraction not to mention the chance of poaching a huge swathe of customers if they get it right.

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selym said:

Watch the subscriber charges get weighted more towards movies and less towards the sport channels if sky lose the football deal.

Can't see that working as sky have now tv undercutting that idea, let alone Netflix, amazon, etc, etc

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Challo said:

How far do you think we are from the tipping between the amount of money being thrown at football and other sports compared to the revenue it will generate and also will this impact the others services they offer or will it just be added to subscriptions and the end user.

Im already thinking of dropping SKY Sports to reduce my costs, im sure other people will be the same.

BT and SKY cant keep adding in money everytime there is a new bid. The money in the premier league from tv is already crazy.

This is a war between sky and bt rather than how much the premier league will actually receive at the moment IMHO, looking at the way sky implements tv packages forcing people to subscribe to a much larger package in order to get the sports channels for football has always irritated somewhat, BT has the chance to offer sport in a more focused way with regards to the pricing as an add on of bt sports to current or new customers or perhaps as a standalone service for those who don't use bt for other services at an increased cost.

Bt currently offer sport for "free" ok the cost is paid for in the base cost of BT service but as it is spread across many more customers the cost hasn't yet seen sky like increases, or at least haven't whilst bt are trying to build this side of the business, wether high bidding cost will change that to a designated subscription or a rise in the cost of phone and broadband

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Challo said:

I wonder if Linekar would make the jump from BBC if BT made him an offer?

Believe this may already under discussion with Linekar and the BBC to allow him to cover European football at BT.

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Discovery channel may have entered the bidding! gone to second round of bids as prices are close.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/06/pr...

Not sure how discovery channel would show the matches in the uk if they won the bidding process- n sky/bt,internet, sub sale of rights?
Or is discovery channel bidding an attempt by sky to squeeze bt from the market and get full market share (or vice versa)

Sky with little or no coverage would be interesting to see if its current business model could survive the loss of premier league football, but then if the cost of the rights has increased that much will sky customers keep the subscription if it becomes even more expensive?

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towser44 said:

They own Eurosport don't they? Probably mean cost to watch Eurosport will rocket and that's annoying as a cycling fan :-(

Just read that on the daily mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-...
Qatari tv channel may also have bid.
Not sure how discovery/Eurosport would get a financial return on investment for this either or how they would get it shown sufficiently to uk viewers, and of course which of the 7 packages they would get, which could well be ones with few top/desirable pick games.

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Russ35 said:

Sky paying £4.176bn of the £5.136bn and BT the rest

So Sky have 126 matches per year and BT 42

So Sky are paying £11m per game and BT £7.6m

Next question is how much are sky going to have to put up prices?

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Cheib said:

Well that tells you one thing....Sky couldn't afford to lose the PL rights. I thinK Sky made £500mil last year....this contract alone has pretty much wiped out annual profits!

I agree that sky couldn't afford to loose the rights but I'm still not convinced they could afford to win them either, be interesting to see how they try to fund this and they other sports they get such as the golf which they have just outbid the bbc on, either massive hit to profits, increase in ad revenues, increase in subscribers or increased subscription fees.
I know which I think is the most likely.

At what point would people stop paying for a subscription? £100 per month, £120? £150?
But then I suppose fags are nearly £9 a pack and people are still paying it.

I can see the headlines in the daily mail now "sky tv costs more per month than a mortgage"

Tinfoil hat on
Perhaps sky subscriptios are to be used in the measurement of inflation to help the uk beat deflation and the government win an election backed by Murdoch, and the government launching the help to sky scheme.
Tin foil hat off.

[Yabu]

Sky increasing prices
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3002779/Sk...
Not sure if the increases will be enough to cover what they are paying for the rights though