English Premier League on SkyTV

I think there's a little bit more at stake for the new app, when they introduce it... you would hope it would be far more reliable than Lightbox etc.

Even Sky Sport managed to get that right when it came to FanPass. They knew they couldn't afford to mess that up when people are paying for it in isolation, and expecting live sport to stream without issue. 

I would assume they are looking at the football world cup issue in Australia recently as the "how not to do this" example. 

the content rights are going to cause Spark a few issues - but if they are upfront about it and let everyone know then there shouldn't be too much dramas.  I still don't think ANYONE can make money in NZ from the premier league rights so eventually I expect there will be no official broadcaster in NZ

I'm picturing a nightmarish dystopian hellscape where all we have is dodgy streams.

looks like reddit.com/r/soccerstreams has been forced to shut down. Shame, it was a great resource. I'm sure similar subs will pop up again though.

Yea the only way to get value out of it seems to be having it as part of a group of different sporting rights like Sky had, and Spark will now have, essentially making it a "loss leader" as they say.

That seems really silly though. To be in this situation means organisations have been overpaying for these rights. When it comes down to it, the market forces should determine the appropriate value, so people like Bein over-paying as part of some sort of global strategy is really sh*tty for us. 

Spark have announced today that their service will be $20 a month which includes all the sports they have, apart from of course the Rugby World Cup which will be a separate subscription with details still to come. Regarding EPL they replied to me on Facebook that they will have every game live and on demand.

Have they purchased Colesium's tech stack?

Choppah - can't imagine that would happen. Surely we'd still have a Bein type scenario where an international player with the right tech can add the NZ market into the mix fairly cheaply and just need to 'flick the switch' so to speak.

So they've got EPL what about Champions League?

Hijacking the thread a bit... but reading Sky's press releases today where they've scrapped the HD Ticket fee... and the idiots are still acting like their 10 channels offered in HD is a big deal...

It's 2019. HD should be the bare minimum. The 10 special channels should be in UHD where content allows!

Wow, that's going to hurt sky's arpu. But yes, about time. Is spark going to offer 1080p or some other resolution?

Yes Spark have said 1080p

will their broadband cope?

It's not the tech cost - it's the cost of the content.  When beIN won the rights it was $3m a year (from a third party who had bulk purchased rights and onsold them).  That's triple the cost that Collisuem paid - and sports rights dont' tend to go backwards in value so I just can't see how money can be made from these rights unless it's a loss leader, bulk packaged kind of deal.

20 current channels.

SKY has champions league locked down.

I’d say that BeIn deal was an outlier though. It was quite an unusual situation where BeIn screwed up big time. 

Same arguement applies at 1mil per season though - the numbers don't add up.

Maybe. 1mill divided by $180 ($20/m in a 9 month season) is about 5,500 people to make that money back though. Obviously there are other costs on top of that, but still. 

obviously it's a bit easier with 1mil - but even at $20 a month with 6k subscribers your not making money your covering your content costs.

While I know there is a hardcore bunch of people who would make up the bulk of that 6k but I don't reckon your getting double that number which is what you probably need.

Anyway a fruitless argument as I have no doubts Spark paid more than 1mil a season for the rights for the next three seasons (bearing in mind the Premier League had something like a 32% increase in the TV rights during the last rights battle) even accounting for beIN's accidental inflation of the market.

Spark is trying to deliver a Product that takes over Sky's sporting monopoly. They know they're not gonna break even in probably the first 5 years, when they are well into 6 figure subscription numbers.

yeah that's clearly the plan and the Premier League rights are being used as part of that - all good.

My fear is that at some point the rights for the premier league are not deemed cost efficent for this purpose by whomever the broadcasters in play are and we miss out on them all together.

Could be sooner than we think.

I can't imagine that happening for a lengthy period of time at all. Ultimately for the premier league some money is better than no money. Didn't Sky commonly use that logic as their bargaining tactic in years gone by? I recall them not agreeing terms with some sporting bodies until virtually the day before the season/event began. Ultimately they knew that no one else could feasibly take it on in NZ at the time, so they used that leverage, and why not, it was a great strategy. 

If the current price point becomes untenable and no one is willing to pay it, then no one will - and it's not untenable UNTIL no one is willing to pay it. The ball would be back in the premier league's court then, to decide if they want something, or nothing at all. 

Call me naive but I imagine they would probably at least want something out of it. 

Is there anywhere in the world where the premier league is not accessible due to rights going unsold, despite there being some demand? 

Yeah the price would just come down. Premier league would be stupid to get nothing for the rights at all, and at the same time lose exposure of their product. 

Can also see the amount NZ would be offering would be immaterial to the PL. When rights are sold for hundreds of millions they may may not care about the extra $1-2m (maybe more?) NZ would offer.

May not care, but also may as well just sell it to the highest bidder. Better to get some money and have your product available - especially when it’s zero effort on their part. 

I think they'd be keener to sell it for pittance than to register us as a lost market in their reporting, however small we are. 

Looool - no company on earth is going to just ignore a $1m/year revenue stream because they can't be bothered.

Some interesting chat above - just a point to note - the last three cycles of Premier League rights have been won off a third party who paid for the rights for the South-East Asia and Oceania region and then sold off packages individually - so broadcasters are not dealing directly with the premier league.

Even more reason for them to not turn down free money. 

Interesting, did not realise that was the case each of the three times. 

I'd be interested to know the answer to this. I haven't been able to find out. A more adept googler than I might be able to get through the labyrinth...

They struggle to get standard definition right as far as the Six Nations is concerned. Very choppy, big Bein box in the corner despite playing on the main Sky channels... all a bit weird.

Will they be carrying on with their non-PL Bein channel? Presumably they're committed to Serie A for more than just this season as well.

I'd stick with the Bein channel if they discounted the price significantly to reflect the loss of PL games. But failing that it will probably be on the chopping block to make Spark affordable for me.

I don't imagine beIN will see the value in continuing without Premier League - but maybe.

Are there any plans afoot for Sky to secure the delayed club channels as they previously did during the Coliseum days?

Not sure but I believe Spark actually already have the ManU channel locked in, so already behind the 8 ball on that front. 

(I believe ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal are the 3 most supported clubs in NZ)

Think the last article I read said Liverpool TV as well.

266: "Matchday LIVE: CHE v SPURS"

268: "LIV v WAT LIVE"

269: "MCI v WHU LIVE"

Nice in theory, but in reality beIN 1 is just the goal rush showing the Liverpool Watford game. 2 channels showing the same thing, not sure if the blame lies with Sky or beIN but either way it's bloody annoying. Fair enough if they don't have it to show in the first place but don't advertise a game in the listings only to dash my hopes of watching it live.

edit: Looks like they've managed to find the right feed, eventually.

Has the BeIN website disappeared or is it just me?

Fine for me...

https://connect-nz.beinsports.com/en