Premier League Rights: ITV in talks with BT for some rights

Exciting news if this comes off. 10 to 12 games per season would do nicely for ITV.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9491026/ITV-in-talks-with-BT-to-show-Premier-League-games.html

ITV certainly establishing itself as the home of free football.

As part of the early-stage discussions, it is understood that an idea was floated that one, or potentially two maximum, lesser Premier League games might be shown on ITV in order to promote the sports channel BT intends to launch next year .

However, a spokesman for ITV made it clear that the tentative idea was not something that the broadcaster was interested in and was not considered a serious element of any deal with BT.

"We are not talking to BT about taking any of their Premier League matches for broadcast on ITV channels," said the ITV spokesman. "If BT were looking for a production company to produce their Premier League coverage, that is something that we would of course look at, as we do with other potential contracts."

BT has paid on average about £6.5m per game and needs to maximise revenues by gaining broad distribution.

However, if any of BT's matches were to be aired on ITV, they would in a best-case scenario make between £1m and £1.5m from advertising and sponsorship. This is nowhere near enough to cover what BT paid for the rights.

Making any Premier League matches available on free-to-air TV would also undermine the value of a pay-TV subscription model.

Several analysts believe BT does not even have the right under its deal with the Premier League to sub-license matches to other broadcasters in such a manner .

Bit of a surprise, given he's the BBC's poster boy. Not a natural at football presenting either really, his strengths lie elsewhere.

With the slow demise of ESPN, I wonder if Ray Stubbs might be tempted by a return to the BBC.

Sadly, I'm not sure the BBC would have him back. They're not short for football presenters and people don't tend to reappear after they leave BBC Sport to join another broadcaster.

Is that the first football (in the UK at least) Sunset+Vine have produced?