Coliseum Sports - EPL Overlords

Optus have the EPL rights in Oz from next  season.

Tegal does this mean you will work for these guys now?

yawn

Can someone say with certainty who much data one game would use to stream? I'm going to stream a match using my phone in a couple of weeks so need to be sure I have enough data - assume will need to stream on a lower quality level. Thanks.

If PLP dies, I will not shed a single tear. 

A shame that within a couple of years of Sommet and PLP springing up to challenge the behemoth of Sky, they've failed and the old juggernaut carries on as if nothing happens. I'm hopeful that Sky, if they obtain the rights, will start a separate football channel. I'd sign up for an extra $20 a month if they carried BPL, C1C, FA Cup, Championship, A-League, and hopefully a bit of Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A etc. Maybe even the great Russian league! Go Spartak Moskva!

Colliseum is still going, they have Premier League Pass in jurisdictions outside of NZ, they also have the Golf and have started a joint venture with Lightbox called Lightbox sport.

I'm amazed Lightbox is still going. It's like polar bears clinging to a shrinking iceberg.

They have just given half the golf back to Sky and lost the French rugby they showed last season. 

Coliseum were the first to try it on with sports, they will be the first piece of collateral damage on the way to Sky's eventual downfall, or revolution - if they get their act together.

Only $20 for the rest of the season.

fire sale?

or just a few rounds left. That's about the value of their monthly pass anyway. 

8 rounds, which is just over a 5th of the season. Quite good value imo

Sky copping some flak for their outdated model in the mainstream media now

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7845501...

Bout time.

Although I'm puzzled as to why they are saying Sky are "last" in the list of reputable companies. Aren't they actually 25th? Or do they only survey on these 25 companies alone?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c...

As one of the most enthralling English Premier League seasons in recent memory comes to a climax, it is possible there will be no official broadcast of the competition into New Zealand next season.

<snip>

- Herald on Sunday

Dougie - please don't copy and paste whole articles for copyright reasons. Post the first paragraph and a link to the piece.

Ok Patrick, didn't realise Was only doing it that way as the mobile app doesn't allow you to click links and I view the forums probably 90% of the time using the app. I thought others might be the same...

Discussion in the media about people departing Sky seems to be ramping up.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/78918691/customers...

The industry expert in the article specifically says that Sky should now be offering their channels at an individual price, so you can pick and choose what you actually want, rather than paying a huge fee for content you will only watch 0.01% of. He says they should already have moved to that model.

The Sky spokesperson's view on that?

"We think there is a place for traditional Sky for many years yet. It offers a lot of premium content for a relatively low monthly cost. I say this with my hand on heart as I went to the movies with my two kids on Saturday, it cost $46 dollars for the tickets only, let alone parking and popcorn, all for two hours' pleasure for three people. Sky is very good value."

Not sure how Sky can be so out of touch with the market to be honest. Comparing with the cinema is apples and oranges - people don't go to the movies instead of watching tv at home. Ridiculous comparison.

They are going to collapse spectacularly in the next few years if they really believe the crap she's saying. My missus got a whiff of Netflix for the first time recently - a mate had a spare device allocation so put it on our tablet for her to try out. She's sold, ready to get rid of Sky within a week. Now me panicking about my sports is the only thing holding us up! Seriously considering going full rogue on illegal streaming now...

They won't pre-empt any sort of change like that - look at their margins/profits - they're going to milk their current model for all it's worth... their only challenge is to not leave it TOO late before the shift, if they haven't already done so (which I think they have).

Wouldn't be surprised if they take a leaf out of the NZ Post book and manage a swift and purposeful down-sizing over the next couple of years.

Games every second week or something?

you're joking, but I actually see something like that as a future model for Sky to adopt. 

Services like sky will be for those who just want to watch sport, but aren't too fussed what they watch. You see this already with American sports, and with the EPL for the last couple of season. 

While streaming services offer individual packages for those who want to watch every game (or want to choose which games they watch, and when). 

Just a slow filtering away of content from their general offering, without a price reduction, probably with public excuses of dwindling subscription numbers.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7968966...

LOL

These guys have had SO much warning.

Laughable that they're saying it's because of the Rugby World Cup, when in reality the Rugby World Cup was the only thing keeping a lot of subscribers on. 

Sky will be a different business for sure but it is a dominant player, is extremely profitable and has the money to develop the online delivery.  It will face more competition but with 830,000 subscribers that is a huge behavioural shift your are talking about.  And there is not one single service out there that could replace the combination of sport and entertainment that you get with sky 

BTW, Coliseum were a terrible advertisement for this service.  My subscription that I share with a mate has just stopped working for no reason, can't get a single person to deal with it.  A joke really

This is why piracy exists - when the content owners make it expensive and hard to access content, when there's a free alternative that's easier to access. I'll always endeavor to pay for content (Netflix, PLP subscriptions, itunes movie rentals etc) but when I need Sky to see champions league I'll be getting it illegally.

Anyword on PLP for next season? Has PLP got the NZ rights off the new AU owners for EPL content for AU & NZ?

 

I understand from another thread that PLP is history as of this month. Goneburger. No more.

100% accurate

I think they only every got about 20k subscribers.  I always said it was about proof of concept for them and with so many more eyes in Asia that was the real goal

BeIN sports has the NZ rights, although they don't have a broadcast platform here in NZ. Sky have denied that they have a deal in place with BeIN to show games, but given that's exactly what has happened for the UCL this year, it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that it'll be back on Sky next year.

Pretty sure the Champions League does not really fall into either of those buckets, probably should just admit that you want it for free

Well not as difficult to access as PLP but it is expensive since you need sky basic and sports to watch it (if you wouldn't have Sky otherwise), and potentially MySky to record too since the games tend to kick off when most people here are at work/school etc. Of course you can just watch at a pub for free instead of paying for Sky, but that may not be an option for many due to kick off times and work hours.

Most Aussie fans you'd imagine will now be watching the EPL illegally after Optus announced that only its phone or broadband customers will be able to access matches (free with plans costing more than $85 / month, otherwise have to pay extra) via internet streaming or a set top box:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c...

In the UK, BT Sport offer a lot of football at no extra charge to BT phone and broadband subscribers but you can also subscribe to it's sports channels without being a BT customer.

Maybe using a paid VPN service to disguise your location you could subscribe to some of the overseas legal online football services for a better quality stream and games on demand?

Fox have now announced that they have signed up with some of the bigger EPL clubs to show all their games, although they will be delayed a couple of hours. No increase in price plus have another 3 Bein Sports channels as well which will be showing every Euro game live.

Fox had been trying to do a deal with Optus but they were not interested. Has been a big backlash against Optus and they are going to lose millions of dollars by trying to rip off customers.

without having much knowledge of the law in Australia...I wonder how legal that is? It seems like bundling by forcing a consumer (of EPL) to sign up to a broadband package that they wouldn't normally do under normal market conditions. You could argue Optus have market dominance of the EPL product and are using it to force consumers to buy another product (broadband etc) of which they face competition. 

If they offered it as a standalone EPL offering it'd be fine, but this seems questionable. People are right to be pissed off. 

how's that different from being forced to subscribe to sky which you wouldn't otherwise do?

it's not. But I guess Sky would say their product is the more general "pay tv" plus they pass on cost savings (ha) by being able to pull resources to save on programming rights. (I think sky are pushing it by making you sign up for basic before you can sign up to sports). 

Whereas I fail to see how any of that works for broadband and EPL. The intention clearly seems to be to use the EPL to drive up their broadband market share. 

Spark offer lightbox as a part of their broadband packages, but you can also sign up to that individually. So there is no intent to use it to stifle competition there, it's simply a discounted package. 

I think the difference is that you had to change your broadband to Optus. 

People that have Foxtel can use any provider. That is why Optus has copped  it. They were accused of price gouging.

it'd be interesting if someone (competitor or consumer) decided to lay a complaint.