BT Sport makes its move

First topic message reminder :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22462525

BT Sport 1 and 2 will be free to BT Broadband customers. That is quite a lot of sport, including 38 live Premier Games. Quite incredible move, and might break the near-monopoly of Sky Sports. Hats off to BT for that.

theres been free to air games?

not too surprising that figures would fall, every man and his dog has sky

BT are making their own Soccer Saturday programme with Mark Pougatch.

Yeah....That's a waste of time & money.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41352801

Of course it will happen.

If Amazon goes all they will win hands down 100%.

The bottom isn't falling out just yet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42164708

200 games up for grabs now! I expect Amazon to get some games, possibly Facebook too?

I hope they don't, was better when it was a single provider.

This sort of false competition is bad for the fans, prices escalating rapidly and bts coverage is shocking. I don't fancy pl coverage spread across 4 paid for platforms.

i really dont understand how sky have been putting their prices up why losing major events to BT hand over fist.

no champions league
no ashes
no decent boxing that isnt ppv
much less premierleague
sharing champions cup rugby

ive cancelled all of mine, was getting both on virgin for around 70 a month for a year. then it bumped up to 112 a month! the only thing on sky at the moment id watch would be football and darts.

Paying a huge premium for the top pl packages.

Before setanta et al entered the market all pl football was in one place and the prices were fairly stable.

Since then the prices have risen far above inflation and they've exploded since bt entered the market.

Sky and BT agreed a deal to supply each others channels from 2019, was announced last week

This probably means a Sky Sports subscription which includes BT Sport will be on the horizon at some point, and rumours are that both BT/Sky are looking to play more defensively at the next rights auction, and try and consolidate what they have against outside bidders

They're both bricking it over the tech companies making any kind of entrance into the market by the sound of it, but unlikely to see the huge increases in the total deal that we've seen recently

Sounds to me like the price rise will be minimal to recent standards. Interesting to see if BT are the ones pushed out because I’m not sure it’s really working for them.

Could well be that we get a few more Sky games but BY stay the same and other packages are played with by Amazon or Facebook.

Suspect BT may have problems with the champions league when that’s reviewed too.

BT Sport is doing well for BT, can't see them not backing it

They've got European rights until 2020/21 at least, and the Premiership Rugby is doing really well too apparently

Their paid uptake is very poor at the moment and their top viewed sports programme (not sure which one) in 2017 was 750,000 - under half of sky's.

We need real competition i.e. Allow everyone to purchase the same rights and let the consumer decide which channel they prefer to watch on and purchase. That isn't in the pls interest however.

Might be making another move soon....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5346117/BT-Sport-prepared-ditch-Premier-League-TV-rights.html?mrn_rm=rta-fallback

Sky Sports on its last legs now as it has lost La Liga coverage to Eleven Sports (no, me neither), starting from next season.

Tbh, no brainer for Sky to lose it. People tune in twice a year for a ‘clasico’, and that’s it.

Last legs?

Yep, we're in the last 10 years of Sky Sports now. It belongs to a bygone age.

They are still doing pretty well for themselves in a changing market place.

Wouldn't write them off just yet.

Social media is probably going to be the next frontier for live sports, at the very least streaming. Wouldn't be surprised if most TVs are exclusively streaming in the next decade or so.

Could do but still 7 million people watching X factor and 15 million people listening to radio 2 every week.

Sky could just move into on demand sports streaming, they've a tested platform with sky go.

If you are a football fan then BT should be your number 1 choice. Premier league, champions league, FA cup among European football.

Yes Sky offer more epl games but overall BT have the best football package for fans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45248695

The times are changing. Though £10 per game is ridiculous.

BT have now got the rights to WWE wrestling. That is a popular show which they have managed to get from sky.

Sky were happy to lose it. The ratings have been poor and the show is expensive

Sky are cutting shows, or offering less so they can get more money for football.
Which is there staple and main seller.

BT Sport also recently retained the rights to the Champions League/Europa League/new European competition until 2024, fending off a challenge from Sky and ITV.