@pioplolo wrote:
Mark I think your missing the point of this whole thread I have been with sky from day one in fact I used to sell it many many years ago I used to pay 16 pounds for the full package movie sport I even remember the days of topless darts back then you got to see every sport under the sun but over the last ten years sky is showing less and less sport weather it wasn't sky's fault they lost Eurosport sport the fact still remains the end user which is me is paying more every year but receives less and less yes sky does show more football than it did five years ago but that's it it shows no rugby union no top quality boxing superleague rugby is 90 percent on the red button which works great in the room your internet is in but **bleep** anywhere else so my question to you and everybody else with all the competition such as BT virgin tnt premier now TV netflix Amazon apple TV do you think sky will survive charging customers over 76 quid for sky plus the sport no movies and what price do you think is fair value
I don't thnk i am missing the point, on one of your previous posts, which i replied to you were claiming that Sky had lost a lot of sport, and also listed specific sports. For some of the sports, you are correct Sky clearly decided the TV rights weren't worth the value and decided to concentrate on other sports, however for a number of examples you listed your argument was factually incorrect which it what i picked up on.
With regards to your question about will Sky survive with this sports strategy and price - i actually think the answer is yes, as exclusivity of Sports is literally the big USP that Sky can offer now, due to the uptake of streaming and the death of broadcast TV. In addition with the NOW TV service ( which is owned by Sky), you don't have to pay £70/80 per month to have base Sky + Sports, you can literally just pay for the sports subscription. I do also think the purchase of ITV may help Sky, as some sports rights holders MAY potentially be willing to accept slightly smaller rights fees from Sky, if it meant as a part of the deal some of the coverage is broadcast free-to-air via ITV to help that sport grow and gain further exposure.
With TNT Sports, absolutely no one knows what the future of the UK version of that will be or look like. Should Paramount complete the takeover of WDB, they will own TNT Sports but the question will very much be, based on how much debt would be taken on to complete the purchase of WBD ( on top of the debt they already had as part of the Skydance Paramount takeover), if they would even be financially capable of submitting bids for some of the more premium sports rights that other parties are also interested in acquiring. The delay of the takeover not happening by the Autumn and being held up until at least next Spring is already going to add at least in the region of an additional $1.7 billion to the takeover cost due to the offer Paramount made as part of the bid.
Currently most of the other streaming services seemingly don't want to overspend on expensive sports rights, which would likely lead them to having to substantially increase their subscription prices for all sports to subsidise any sporting rights costs. Amazon for the UK dipped their toes in the water of live sports with one of the smaller PL TV packages, and also the tennis tour and then subsequently dropped their interest in them to instead go with the weekly UCL game, which gives them about 13/14 games a season. Disney + are testing the value of a small number of football games by broadcasting the saturday night La Liga game and having the rights to the Women's Champions League, but these rights were likely relatively cheap in the scheme of sports right, and again is an example of them wanting either a small number of games ( e.g one a week) or games at an irregular schedule you get with the women's CL where you may have 2 rounds one month, then one round the following month etc, as a way of getting those fans to continue subscribing month after month.
Paramount seem to be the outlier with the money they have spent on the men's UCL rights for the next TV contract, but that is a company that is potentially willing to lose money over the short/medium term in a bid to get new paying subscribers to their platform who won't cancel during months where there is no UCL matches or who won't cancel if Paramount fail to renew to the rights at the end of the deal. Paramount + has a relatively small paying subscriber base when compared to the more established Netflix and Disney +, so they are ultimately more likely willing to gamble on the cost of such a rights deal in order to try and grow the revenue over a much longer term.
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