BT Sport - For Sale

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

42 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

I don't think it's possible to make money from broadcasting expensively acquired pay TV sport in the UK. Eleven, Setanta, ITV, ESPN and BT have all tried and failed. Sky is the obvious exception but even they have been stripping back sports rights especially in rugby and football the last few years,at the expense of investing more in non-sport content. 

Aye. Which is why I don't see why anyone would invest as a partner for BT.

BT are supposed to use sport as something to sell their other services like TV, movies, internet and make the money back that way. If there is no secondary revenue generation for a potential partner then what is the point?

 

[Alert Mongoose]

I could be wrong it isn’t it the case that base subscribers with the likes of Sky are essentially subsidising the sport section (if you consider them as different departments). I think over time if investment in non sports output drops enough as a result of this there will be difficult decisions to be made.  

[Michael W]

19 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

I could be wrong it isn’t it the case that base subscribers with the likes of Sky are essentially subsidising the sport section (if you consider them as different departments). I think over time if investment in non sports output drops enough as a result of this there will be difficult decisions to be made.  

Someone posted up thread that Sky simply won't reveal how many subscribers they have. Every chance the standard subscribers are filling up the gap. 

[Guest TheJTS98]

22 hours ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Aye. Which is why I don't see why anyone would invest as a partner for BT.

BT are supposed to use sport as something to sell their other services like TV, movies, internet and make the money back that way. If there is no secondary revenue generation for a potential partner then what is the point?

 

I think with BT it was just a defensive measure as Sky were moving into their market for broadband.

They never seemed keen on it as a strategy, and industry types were always talking about how they were never likely to be in it long-haul.

Nobody in the UK, other than Sky, has ever made a real go of paywall sport (as mentioned above). And even Sky's success is hard to gauge as their dominance of the UK satellite tv market in the last 30 years makes it hard to pick apart how many people have it because they want to watch football, how many people have it because they want to watch films, how many people have it just for more tv channels, how many have it just because that's what you do.

We don't even know how many people actually have it. All these things put together mean we can't really say how wise or unwise a strategy it is. People just seem to accept that it's the only way. But there doesn't seem to be much of a queue of companies desperate to follow Sky.

There's also the question of long-term impact. What will it do for sports like cricket and rugby union to be hidden away from a lot of young viewers? Will this impact participation and interest in the years to come? It's too soon to say. Football will suffer less from that due to its dominant position in the UK, but it's still a consideration.

In Australia, for example, the NRL, Big Bash cricket, and Aussie Rules still have a combined paywall and free-to-air model which assures exposure. You can watch every NRL, Big Bash, and AFL finals play-off match for free, for example. An Australian kid can grow up watching weekly matches as well as the biggest games (State of Origin, NRL finals series, AFL finals series etc) on normal tv. How many times can a young Celtic supporter whose parents can't afford Sky see their team, or any Premiership team, play every year? How do they develop the same relationship with the sport and become a paying customer?

There's also Channel 7 doing free-to-air test match cricket. A smaller population, and a different market, but an acceptance that exposure matters long-term. As well as the cultural point that people should be able to see it. There is another way.

Edited May 5, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Rodhull]

 

[Rodhull]

Link to images of the article.

[Pie Of The Month]

From the article Sky has to OK the deal. Wouldn't be surprised if they say no as they must be concerned about DAZN after being outbid for Serie A in Italy.

[Clown Job]

I’ve only got BT because of my broadband, I don’t really care about English football either 

I wouldn’t give Sky a penny either 

It’s just ridiculous how many football is behind a paywall across various providers 

[mizfit]

The only reason we took virgin media was because of BT Sports being in the package.
We’ll be binning virgin TV at renewal it looks like. Streaming sports is the future.

NowTV doing a daily package of £9.99 for a day if you’ve a few matches that interest you for example.

[German Jag]

4 hours ago, Pie Of The Month said:

From the article Sky has to OK the deal. Wouldn't be surprised if they say no as they must be concerned about DAZN after being outbid for Serie A in Italy.

In Germany Sky has the BL games on Saturdays, but DAZN have the Friday & Sunday games. Sky also has the BL2 games, outwith the Saturday 20:30 game (on free to air Sport1). DAZN however now has the CL rights in Germany apart from the occasional (ie Bayern) game which is on Amazon.

[FairWeatherFan]

Looks like Discovery are making a play now. Discovery are in the middle of a merger with WarnerMedia to become Warner Bros Discovery. That will set them up as one of the big 4 traditional/hybrid media companies alongside Viacom, Comcast, and Disney.

Makes sense as part of the grander streaming wars narrative. With most of the major media companies now tied up with their own streaming platforms, sports is one of the untapped markets.

 

[Ray Patterson]

On 07/12/2021 at 09:11, FairWeatherFan said:

Looks like Discovery are making a play now. Discovery are in the middle of a merger with WarnerMedia to become Warner Bros Discovery. That will set them up as one of the big 4 traditional/hybrid media companies alongside Viacom, Comcast, and Disney.

Makes sense as part of the grander streaming wars narrative. With most of the major media companies now tied up with their own streaming platforms, sports is one of the untapped markets.

 

They own Eurosport as well so already have some infrastructure in place - they've really professionalised their cycling coverage in recent years.

[ScoRoss]

 

[Rodhull]

4 hours ago, ScoRoss said:

 

Interesting, especially with the initial talk being of BT being desperate to get out of sports. Doesn't look like there'll be much change in the near future at least.

Could be interesting once HBO's deal with Sky runs out if there's some kind of combined HBO/Discovery/BT sport streaming service offered?

[Bishop Briggs]

On 09/01/2022 at 02:34, Ray Patterson said:

They own Eurosport as well so already have some infrastructure in place - they've really professionalised their cycling coverage in recent years.

Like having their commentators in the studio or at home rather than at the races?

4 hours ago, Rodhull said:

Interesting, especially with the initial talk being of BT being desperate to get out of sports. Doesn't look like there'll be much change in the near future at least.

Could be interesting once HBO's deal with Sky runs out if there's some kind of combined HBO/Discovery/BT sport streaming service offered?

BT is getting 50% of the merged company plus initial £93m in cash and another £540m based on performance. That looks a good deal with their reduced EPL rights.

BT could then sell on all or part of its share in the new business to  Amazon Prime, Netflix or another big media company. At some point, the likes of Apple and Google will move into broadcasting. 

[Rodhull]

6 hours ago, Bishop Briggs said:

Like having their commentators in the studio or at home rather than at the races?

BT is getting 50% of the merged company plus initial £93m in cash and another £540m based on performance. That looks a good deal with their reduced EPL rights.

BT could then sell on all or part of its share in the new business to  Amazon Prime, Netflix or another big media company. At some point, the likes of Apple and Google will move into broadcasting. 

True although Warner having the first refusal on BT's share makes it seem unlikely they'd be happy to allow someone else to buy in. Most likely they'll buy BT out or try and get someone to buy their share as well if things aren't working out like they hoped.

[ScoRoss]

BT Sport and Eurosport to become TNT Sports.

[GNU_Linux]

It's dynamite

[Ro Sham Bo]

Whatever it's going to be called moving forward, I hope they take the opportunity to revamp their punditry line up. 

[gavin_3110]

Have I imagined it or was there a channel called TNT in the mid 90's that used to show Wrestling and possibly Nascar?

EDIT - There was;

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/338030/sky-astra-lineup-early-90s

Edited February 22, 2023 by gavin_3110