BT wins a further 20 football matches per season in Premier League rights auction
From 2019/20 Season, BT will show 52 exclusively live Premier League football matches per season for three years
20 additional matches will cost £90m, bringing the total cost for 52 games to £975m over three years
Still on the Corporate Site
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here ……..
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NEWS on BTPLC.COM
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07-Jun-2018 @ 22:27
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A lot of Irish customers are not happy with the potential idea of paying for an extra subscription if Premier Sports came back as a separate entrant to the Irish TV sports market. The current joint deal with Premier Sports & Eir, which include the BT Sports channels is going to lapse soon in the Republic of Ireland. Their co-operation had been really successful lately with both of them getting exclusive rights to the Pro14 rugby tournament for sport subscribers in both the UK & Ireland.
I would not be happy if they went separate ways & become separate companies in Ireland.
I would like to see them to continue the joint coverage & co-operation for their channels to the Irish market as normal because it ultimately works out so much cheaper for the subscribers here especially when Eir Fibre customers receive the Eir Sport 1 with Premier Sports and BT Sport for free with Eir broadband. If those The Irish subscriber in this case could have the potential here of paying for 3 separate subscriptions to get everything for watching their sports rights from Sky, Eir, BT & Premier. A portion of the Irish subscribers here do not have the money to stump up for 3 subscriptions to cover their sports fix for the year as that becomes far too expensive if they are average sports fans.
I'm going to put an article here by The Irish Times that rdd mentioned earlier because it is behind a paywall. I just want you guys to see if it checks out this deal would also be available to Irish subscribers without them going their separate ways with just Premier Sports.
Quote:
Former Setanta owner secures Irish rights to 53 Premier League matches
By Ciarán Hancock
Mickey O’Rourke’s Premier Sports expected to hold talks with Sky, Virgin and other platforms
Dublin businessman Mickey O’Rourke has secured the Irish rights to broadcast 53 live English Premier League matches per season for a three-year period, beginning in August 2019.
Mr O’Rourke, who was a co-founder of the Irish pay-TV channel Setanta Sports, has secured the rights through Premier Sports, a company he owns that broadcasts in the United Kingdom.
The deal includes the rights to show 33 live Saturday afternoon games in the Republic. These matches are not broadcast in the UK, and are currently shown here by British satellite operator Sky.
In addition, he will hold the Irish rights for a separate pack of 20 matches that the Premier League offered to the market.
This comprises all 20 matches from one bank holiday, and one mid-week fixture programme. The equivalent rights in the UK have been secured by Amazon Prime Video.
It is not clear how much Premier has paid for its Irish rights. The company would be expected to hold talks with Sky, Virgin Media, Eir and other platforms about offering these games to customers here.
Based in Dublin, Premier Sports launched in the UK in August 2010. It is available via subscription to 16 million homes through the Sky and Virgin platforms at £9.99 (€11.36) a month. It is also available in high definition through its online Premier player service.
Rugby rights
In April, it signed a deal to show live Pro14 Rugby in the UK for three years. Its portfolio also includes rugby league, GAA, continental European football, ice hockey, MMA and motorsports.
Mr O’Rourke sold Setanta Sports to Eir in 2016 and it has since been rebranded as Eir Sport. Mr O’Rourke cut his ties with the business in April after the expiry of an earn-out period.
In February, the Premier League announced that it had sold five of its seven live packages of rights for Britain and Ireland to Sky and BT for a combined £4.46 billion (€5.07 billion). The rights cover three years from the beginning of the 2019/20 season.
Sky Sports said yesterday that it has been awarded the rights to show 128 Premier League games a season live in the Republic from 2019.
Under the agreement, which mirrors the broadcaster’s rights in the UK, it will get first pick of weekend matches. It will also get access to Saturday evening fixtures for the first time but it has lost the matches in the 3pm slot on Saturday that it had previously held to Premier.
The announcement marks a further diversification for consumers who may now have to sign up to a third subscription channel if they are looking for comprehensive coverage.
Commenting on the latest Irish rights sale, Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore said: “There is huge appetite for the Premier League in Ireland and we are very pleased to have concluded this process which ensures more matches than ever before will be available live from 2019/20 onwards.
“We know that Sky Sports and BT Sport will continue to provide fantastic live-match broadcasts and programming for fans across the country, and we welcome Premier Sports as a new partner. We know they will make available high-quality coverage that will appeal to local fans.”
Just to say that while that article mentions that Premier Sports have “cut their ties” with eir Sport, that’s not actually altogether accurate (yet). Setanta is still playing out both eir Sport and Premier Sports, and eir Sport 2 is still just Premier Sports with a different label on the EPG and geoblocking of GAA championship coverage.
There is no gap. The PL match week is being split so there’ll be PL action throughout and covered by BT Sport. Arguably their big couple of weeks in the year as a result. As for Sky the EFL are not participating in the break so they will use the two weeks to showcase their new extensive rights in the 2019-22 round, awarded sometime ago.
I do think in all this, something quite major is bring overlooked. The only place if you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription, to watch any Premier league football on Boxing Day will be MoTD highlights on BBC One at 10.30.
OK so, Sky will run EPL games at 12, 2, 5. 30 and 7.45 whilst BT will choose a trio of Aviva Rugby Union games to fill the gaps, but you can't help thinking both would not have been happy at seeing Boxing Day and a fairly good ratings banker - for the right game - hived off into another pack.
The real eye opener in this round is the Sky HAVEN'T got the maximum number of fixtures available to them, yet more evidence of their loss of appetite for grabbing everything on offer.
Will there be a special Amazon Prime deal for pubs and venues?
Next day delivery on beer?
Will be annoying if Prime membership goes up to pay for this regardless of if people want it - I already think the core Prime delivery service has somewhat been scaled back over the last year with "Prime" not always meaning next day delivery anymore, and funds clearly directed to the video element. Possible that they could charge extra for it as a "channel", but the rights they have make that unlikely IMO.
£30m a season for BT then makes it £1.5m a match, though in reality with only 4 or 5 broadcast slots per round, so double the price really - but significantly cheaper than the rights they already had. I suspect it's inevitable the midweek games will get 6pm and 8pm kick-offs to maximise revenues.
Also a lack of joined up thinking from the PL with their announcement this week of one round of fixtures over two weeks to give those poorly paid overworked players a week off. That week would have been ideal to be thrown into this package as it would give 10 games over 10 broadcast slots.
