Sky allays footy fans’ fears over EPL games
The questions started in February, as Sky TV announced it had won back English Premier League rights from Spark Sport: “Will Sky show every game on-demand?”
It was a valid question, given the Sky Sport Now app habitually only shows highlights — and from selected games at that — for various codes, compared to Spark Sport’s full replays for nearly everything.
And it’s also one that continues to be raised on social media by suspicious fans.
So the Herald asked Sky to put it in black and white. Will it offer all Premier League games on-demand?
“Yes, all 380 games will be live and on-demand on Sky and Sky Sport Now,” chief corporate affairs officer Chris Major replied.
Although Sky has seized back rights to the world’s most popular league, football fans will still have to divide their attention between Sky Sport ($34.99/month or $39.99/month for Sky Sport Now) and Spark ($24.99/month).
On top of reeling back in the EPL, Sky recently renewed its agreement with the A-League ( now partlyowned by Silver Lake) and the Wellington Phoenix. The pay-TV broadcaster also holds rights to the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, plus the Fifa World Cup.
But Spark retains Uefa’s Champions League, Europa and Conference League competitions under a three-year deal that runs through to 2024, plus the aforementioned Euros and Manchester United TV (MUTV), Liverpool TV and the FA Women’s Super League. And Spark recently extended its Uefa deal to include the 2024 and 2028 Euro competitions.
Rise and rise of Big Tech
The situation is at least less complicated than in the UK, where Premier League matches are divided between Sky UK, BT Sport and Amazon’s Prime Video — meaning three separate subscriptions are required to see every game played by your favourite team. And the UK football rights landscape became even more splintered on July 1 as BT lost its exclusive Champions League rights as a new deal was struck for the three seasons from 2024 that will see it share matches with the BBC and Amazon. The trio will collectively pay £1.4 billion ($2.7b) for the deal, up from the previous three-season cycle’s £1.2b.
In a statement, Uefa’s marketing director Guy-Laurent Epstein said: “Amazon has ambitious plans across the global sporting industry and we look forward to the innovative ways in which it will broadcast European club football in the UK market.”
While its ambitions might be big, Amazon seems happy to play a long game, slowly nibbling away at incumbents. Its sports rights portfolio continues to quietly expand. It also streams live tennis to UK users, including the US Open. In the US it carries some NFL games, while it already broadcasts a number of Champions League matches in Germany and Italy.
And elsewhere in sport, Big Tech is on the march.
Apple recently paid US$2.5b ($4b) for exclusive rights to US Major League Soccer, adding to a sports portfolio that already includes rights to some Major League Baseball games.
And in mid-June the Viacomowned Paramount paid US$2.6b for five years’ domestic streaming rights to the Indian Premier League, the world’s most lucrative cricket tournament (Paramount+ also holds A-League rights in Australia).
Meanwhile, the global craze for telcos to stream sports is ebbing. BT is in the process of selling BT Sport to the DAZN-owned EuroSport (the deal currently sits with regulators), while Telstra and Optus have scaled back their sports plays across the ditch — leading at least one analyst to say it’s time for Spark to follow suit.
And in April, Fifa introduced its own global streaming service — which features archive games and documentaries, but with the global sports body leaving the door open to a payper-view, direct-to-consumer service for live games in future. That would be nothing radical, with so many sports bodies now experimenting with their own apps.
Sky has no immediate concerns. The Kiwi pay-TV broadcaster sewed up Premier League rights for six years (previous NZ rights deals have been for three), and it has long-term deals in place for other major codes.
Nevertheless, it will be keeping a close eye on these trends.
The new Premier League season begins on August 6.