Tech levelling playing field for Sky rivals
Damien Venuto
Sky may be at risk of losing other sports rights as digital technology opens the playing field to new competitors, says a media expert.
TVNZ and telco Spark announced yesterday that they had won the rights for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
These rights were previously held by New Zealand’s dominant pay-TV operator, Sky.
Alex Lawson, the general agency at media agency Carat, says that while Sky will continue to have a strong hold over the content it produces, the same cannot be said for sports content created elsewhere.
“It will be interesting to see how many more sports drop in the next 12 months,” Lawson told the Herald.
“For instance what happens if New Zealand Rugby decides to sell the end-of-year tour to the highest bidder? Or what if the Warriors go for a split model, with all the away games going to another bidder in Australia?”
The media agency boss said that Sky remains in a stronger position when it comes to local content, largely because of its production infrastructure that allows for the delivery of quality content.
Lawson said the emergence of Spark in the local market shows that Sky is no longer only competing with the struggling traditional broad- casters and that a new breed of contenders are posing the biggest threat to the status quo.
Lawson pointed to the UK, where telecommunications giant BT launched sports-dedicated channels, specifically to compete for Premier League Football rights.
Speaking to the Herald this month, Sky director of sport Richard Last said the cost of the 2019 Rugby World Cup rights stretched well beyond the figure the company paid for the 2015 edition. Last said negotiators should always have a walk-away price and in this instance it got to the stage where Sky had no other choice but to let the rights go.
Spark hasn’t revealed what was paid for the rights. To recoup the investment spent on the rights, Spark will sell digital subscriptions at $100 for the whole tournament or lower one-off prices for single games.
Spark’s head of corporate relations Andrew Pirie said the company was confident the approach would work.
Pirie believes Spark will be able to offer pricing options that give more people access to games.
“We hope this will mean a significant number of Kiwis, who previously choose not to have or couldn’t afford a lengthy Sky subscription, will have a chance to watch,” he said.