Sky on the up after volatile FTSE session

Market report Scott Reid

Investors gave a thumbs up to Sky after the media giant and rival BT stumped up £4.5 billion to claim the broadcasting rights to dozens of English Premier League football matches.

Sky closed up 2 per cent at 1,082p having been higher in morning trading as it won the race to become the main broadcaster of live Premier League football by seizing four of the seven TV rights packages for 2019-22. BT dipped 0.3p at 225.55p after securing a smaller bundle of games.

A further two packages are still up for grabs, with bidding set to continue when the auction restarts today, but the costper-game price has fallen to £9.3 million, down from the current £10.2m.

Despite speculation that America’s tech giants would mount an incursion into live Premier League broadcasting, the likes of Amazon or Netflix have been absent from the process so far.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “There’s two packages still up for grabs, but so far Sky is the big winner from the Premier League auction.

“Securing more games at a lower cost is a major coup, and with BT seemingly content to play second fiddle on the Premier League, that rivalry now looks to have thawed.”

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 share index closed up 45.96 points at 7,213.97. CMC Markets analyst David Madden described it as a volatile session. The Uk-listed soft drinks bottling company highlighted “another year of significant progress towards our 2020 strategic objectives”. Financial burdens linked to Carillion’s collapse pushed the construction firm to raise a further £150 million to strengthen its balance sheet.