BT Sport (1 Viewer)

samccov1987 said:

I do wonder why the premier league don’t just create their own app/streaming service. But then without all the promotion from Sky would people sign up?

Just seen that DAZN have signed Eddie Hearn’s boxing so if they did get BT’s sport portfolio may be a cheaper option to sky if the price is right.

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Evo1883 said:

Everything has a limit doesn't it , it will implode at some point

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chiefdave said:

We may be at that point. BT Sport have been racking up losses of tens of millions annually and boosted their subscriber numbers by offering knock down prices to BT customers. And of course the likes of Setanta and Eleven Sports failed miserably. Even Disney couldn't pull it off and backed ESPN out of the UK pretty swiftly, licensing the branding to BT.

Did some reading on this subject when C4 ended up with the England tour to India at the last minute. The rights were originally offered to Sky and BT with an asking price £20m, C4 are believed to have paid £2m and that was for a ready to air product. The feed they received from India already had English language commentary on it, they just had to rebroadcast it.

Seems a lot of things being shown on Sky and BT are actually being provided to them free of charge as the rights market has collapsed. The theory being you can get more income from additional sponsorship than the cost of providing the feed. Even the Premier League found that in the last rights sale, in 2018, for the first time two of the packages on offer went unsold in the initial auction having failed to make their reserve price. The PL are current trying to get the existing deals extended on the same terms, we all know they wouldn't be doing that if they were confident the next round of rights would generate more income.

Put simply the rights aren't generating enough revenue, through subscribers and advertising, to justify the asking price. Direct to consumer (streaming) is an option but interestingly a lot of companies who have been operating that way are moving back to selling rights packages citing the costs of maintaining technology.

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