Football no longer a Sky Exclusive!

CW

CW

C Dub
Founding Member
6 October 2001
Liverpool
The Premier League have settled their dispute with the European Commission over television rights.

The EC say the deal over rights for the 2007/08 season will give fans "greater choice and better value".

The League have given a commitment that at least two broadcasters will share the rights in the future and no bidder will be allowed to buy more than five of the six packages of live games.

A statement from the League revealed shareholders had approved the deal which was agreed with EC competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, who will now forward them for formal approval.

Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said: "This has been a long and often complicated negotiation.

"We are grateful to the commissioner and her officials for the efforts they made to reach a workable compromise.

"We are pleased that this agreement addresses the commission's competition concerns, and paves the way for certainty surrounding how we sell our rights next time around."

A statement from the EC revealed: "Live TV rights will be sold in six balanced packages with no one bidder being allowed to buy all six packages.

"Packages will be sold to the highest stand-alone bidder for each package, and bids other than simple stand-alone bids will be disregarded."

The auction will be monitored by a trustee, selected by the commission, who will report back to the EC.

Kroes said: "I am pleased to bring this long-running case closer to a satisfactory outcome.

"The commitments offered by the Premier League should ensure that the media rights are sold in a fair and transparent manner and give British football fans greater choice and better value."

After months of wrangling over BSkyB's current monopoly over the rights, a spokesman for the commission confirmed the threat of legal action against the League had been lifted.

The spokesman said: "We are no longer threatening legal action."

A range of broadcasters now stand a chance of getting a share of the live match rights.

The Commission said until today's deal, they had been worried that the League's plans for 2007 onwards "deprived media operators and British football fans of choice, led to higher prices and reduced innovation".

The statement added: "The League's revised commitments address the points raised, including specifying the precise terms of the no-single-buyer rule and the conduct of the auction process, creating evenly-balanced packages of rights, and increasing the availability of rights to broadcast via mobile phones."
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Interesting...
 
Milanista said:
Does this mean you have to buy more services to watch the whole EPL?
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I dont think so mate, it means that more games will be shown on non PPV TV
 
I know i that NTl and Telewest have jonined up to become UK Cable next year and they have said they will be commited in taking the fight to SKY!

What happens at the auction if say SKy bid 250m and the best BBC or ITV could do was 100m will ITV and BBc get the packages still even though its so much lees but all they could spend? If thats the case then the teams themselves would lose out!?
 
Apparently there are going to be 6 seperate packages on offer and Sky cant win them all this time
 
jamie_mack said:
If thats the case then the teams themselves would lose out!?
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Yeah that's what I wonder, is there going to be less TV money to divide up overall then? At the moment the reason Sky has it all is because they pay the most money, this ruling now means they can't do that so you'd have to assume that there will be less TV money overall as some packages will be given to other broadcasters who won't be offering the same level of cash?

Let's face it, the Sky's money is what revitalised the EPL in the early nineties.
 
Milanista said:
Does this mean you have to buy more services to watch the whole EPL?
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It just means we get to watch matches on other existing channels we already have. YAY!

If only the BBC had the Champions League.
 
ntl tried to 'take on Sky' in the late 90's. They failed and almost went bankrupt. While their merger with Telewest can only be good for consumers, I'd take anything they announce with a pinch of salt.

Also, Sky will more than likely buy 5 of the packages leaving the 'shite' package to the BBC or ITV. All the more uninteresting games will be in this package.
 
I still don't think that's a fair deal Sky will still get more than 80% of coverage, leaving the shite package for the rest to scramble for. Sky are blatantly ripping-off customers with their sports package (£33 per month I think) plus their extortionate Prem Plus bullshit! I really feel sorry for those who pay £7 for a single match on Prem Plus. What’s worse is the price will rise every couple of seasons.

There are cheaper and better alternatives like ART, TPS etc.
 
I was following this yesterday. The packages will supposedly all have big games within them. The Satanic Sky will no doubt bid for 5 and get 5, however, the last package will still have big games in it. Football should be on terrrestrial TV :mad: I would dearly love to see Sky lose it's only breadmaker.
 
So assuming Sky get a package or 5 it means you won't be able to cancel your subscription as you'll miss out on a load of matches. If UK Cable manage to get at least one of the other packages does that mean you'd need Sky AND cable to see all the matches? Doesn't sound like a win for the consumer there.

Hmmm, let's hope the BBC get their act together.
 
Sky will always have Prem football unless they are banned from bidding. They will get the maximum number of packages they are allowed and everything will be the same.

As Mart said if the packages are split that is no good for anyone except maybe the pubs!
 
Nickybaker said:
As Mart said if the packages are split that is no good for anyone except maybe the pubs!
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I don't think that's neccessarily true. It's good for the viewers who only have Frreview/terrestrial TV and do not want to subscribe to Sky etc. This means they will now get Live Premiership Football coverage , which they didn't have previously.
It's only bad for the people who want to subscribe in order to get as much football as possible, Sky subscribers for example. I doubt their prices will go down for less football coverage, for example.
 
But that's only true if the packages aren't split between cable and sky. I don't think anyone will have a problem with terrestrial or freeview getting some live premiership lovin'.
 
Might give Sky a right kick in the nuts though, as the likes of NTL would have both, i.e. Sky and their own package. Therefore more people may subscribe to the likes of NTL instead of Sky.


FD
 
Sounds dodgy alright, I'd rather Sky keep exclusivity. Means we get to see all the possible games, instead of say, NTL buying one of the packages, then launching their own "Premiership match" channel which might be a cable only subscription based one similar to what Prem+ is now on Sky.

That scenario is more likely to happen than NTL buying the package (the one out of the six) and putting it on a free to air basis to their existing customers. Overall this move could actually be harmful to the consumer, if you want total Premiership coverage that is.
 
Sabac Red said:
Shit, it's better than the monopoly in Italy....
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I actually think the Sky coverage in Italy is excellent. We get the full Serie A, EPL, Ligue 1, Liga, SPL, MLS and Bundesliga in 1 package, which is 33 euros a month.

Terrestrial TV has very poor coverage of the matches, but they have access to all of them. The previous 2 competitors - Tele+ and Stream - were awful. Very limited football and only coverage of the Serie A.

Sky is like the best thing thats hit Italian television as we get stuff like Fox, Fox Crime etc. Its also the reason why football attendences are dropping - consumers get alot of stuff.
 
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