Premier League rights may cost £2bn

[gameboy]

Reports in today's newspapers that The Premier League could make £2bn from football broadcast rights. With Sky coming under pressure from NTL, ITV and Setanta. The top twenty clubs already get £1.6bn and this may rise to £2bn in the future.

Sky pays £341.3m per year to show all 138 live matches. At £2.5m per game this could rise to £3.4m a game.

With six sets of 23 games on offer, Sky would be looking to secure at least four of them (no broadcaster can buy more than 5).

Bids have to be made by 27th April and with the new Virgin, NTL, Telewest company set to offer phone, cable and broadband who knows what will happen.

 

[rolfw]

It will be very interesting to see how this goes, would also be keen to see what happens with the overseas rights, particularly with the now quite heavy penetration by overseas providers of the UK market.

 

[Sir Bronking]

at the end of the day,
it will mean more subscription charges which is one of the reason's i went on a satellite crusade

 

[wod]

as long as i can still get art sports and the rest then i'm not bothered how much sky or whoever stupidly pay out for them

 

[rolfw]

This is what I'm alluding to above, will this affect what ART and others have to pay for the rights, will there in fact be any 3 O'clock Premiership kickoffs after next season? Will ART have to put measures in place to avoid selling into the UK marketplce so directly? It opens up a whole can of worms.

 

[wod]

could be as we know the fa aint too happy with art cause many of us in the uk have it

 

[RedDevil_UK]

unforunatley i think eventually ART will be got at.... things cant stay as they are, and i wouldnt be suprised if in the near future they are stopped from selling to the UK.

abvioulsy we will be able to get Cards through the back door, but the price will rocket!

as one door closes another one opens, im sure we will always get our footy one way or another

 

[Salty25]

I have to be honest, but I just cant see this costing the customer any more than now. Yes, I do sound like a optimist, but people arent gonna be very friendly to paying any more than they do now for Sky. I reckon IF Virgin Cable got some rights, they would HAVE to get AT LEAST two packages (46 games), and even then it would only sell if it was offered like the present day Prem Plus offer, ie season ticket.

You never know though, Virgin might go all out and get three packages (half the rights), and try and undercut Sky's prices - but if that happened it would defo be more expensive, because if it was half n half, Sky and Virgin arent gonna offer their respective packages for £20 are they?

 

[wod]

all they will do is stop the prepaid cards and use ones where they need to be activated so the price will go up

they wont totally stop it as people will still buy them but pay a much higher price

theres still digitalb that shows football and the more expensive canal + etc

i thought they had already started to do it as i saw on one sat shop site these other art cards that needed to be activated

 

[Sir Bronking]

I have to be honest, but I just cant see this costing the customer any more than now.

economics= the more they pay, the more we pay(i don't, but people will and they know it)

 

[Salty25]

economics= the more they pay, the more we pay(i don't, but people will and they know it)

They wont pay that high if they know/dont think they can recoup it back. Theres a limit to how much people will pay.

 

[llss]

i know that this might sound stupid but how will mr branson broadcast , say he wins the rights

 

[Salty25]

i know that this might sound stupid but how will mr branson broadcast , say he wins the rights

I will explain. I'm sure you are aware that NTL recently bought Virgin Mobile from Mr Branson. When they brought Virgin Mobile, they also acquired the rights to use the 'Virgin' brand, and so all things NTL will become Virgin. Mr Branson will have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, NTL are simply using the Virgin brand (mainly to move away from the poor reputation the NTL brand now has because of poor customer service!).

 

[Salty25]

Just found this - http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9071-2138667,00.html

Notice the bit at the end... 'Setanta, the privately owned Irish firm, is expected to bid competitively and the feeling among rival broadcasters is that Sky would be happiest if it scooped the sixth package.'

Makes you wonder whether Setanta's backers true intentions are to buid up a big enough portfolio that Sky will be enticed into buying them out.

 

[llss]

ar right , thanks very much .

 

[Salty25]

take a look - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4937840.stm

if Microsoft won the appeal, could the FA Premier League attempt a similiar appeal, therefore opening up exclusivity for Sky again?

 

[Salty25]

Deadline Day for the rights - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4949606.stm

and a Q&A for the uneducated - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4949998.stm

 

[Salty25]

Even more interesting stuff - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/sport/2006/04/27/sfnbo327.xml and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/04/23/cnitv23.xml

 

[rolfw]

This looks like it may run and run.

This bit was interesting:

The danger for NTL, which will be renamed Virgin TV following its takeover of Virgin Mobile, is if it bids high and still loses to Sky.

NTL pays about £100m per year to Sky for the right to show live matches. That wholesale figure will rise if the rights become more expensive from 2007 onwards.

However, that concern is not expected to stop NTL from bidding. Sir Richard Branson, who swapped his 72 per cent stake in Virgin Mobile for a 14 per cent stake in NTL following the takeover of the mobile company, is known to be keen for NTL to bid aggressively to snatch the Premier League rights from Sky.

It is understood that the Premier League is not obliged to accept the highest bid for each package. Analysts believe that could favour Sky, which has a very close working relationship with the Premier League.

 

[Salty25]

Sky win three packages - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4953846.stm


Confimation by the FA Premier League, and confirmation of second round of bidding - http://www.premierleague.com/fapl.rac

I think what may have happened is that Sky put the highest bid in for three of them, and NTL/Sentanta/Channel 4 beat Sky on the other three. Under the rules of the auction, the FA Premier League can start a second round of bidding regardless of whether the first round bids were over the 'reserve price' the Premier League secretly had. I suspect the Premier League just want to give Sky another chance. However, what happens if NTL, Sentanta, or a variety of merged bidders present a huge viable bid?

Also, there's no news on the packages won. What if Package A (23 First Choice games), is one of the packages still not won? If this was the case, expect some real fireworks. Who knows, Setanta and NTL may be secretly playing Sky's game by acting as seperate bidders, when in fact they're bidding together as a consortium?!