Telecom scores Premier League football deal for fans
Beautiful: Telecom’s first small step into sports content, a partnership with local English Premier League rights holder Coliseum, has failed to get share market analysts off their seats.
Telecom announced yesterday that it had negotiated a 15 per cent discount for its broadband customers to watch English Premier League games online.
New customers signing up to ‘‘mid-range’’ broadband plans costing $85 a month will be able to watch a season of football, normally costing $150, for free. That would be instead of getting a months’ free broadband. Existing customers can also go into a draw for 1000 free passes.
The promotion is less generous than some forecasts, but that may please some market watchers.
Speaking before details of the deal were announced, Xero chief executive Rod Drury said he was concerned about the impact on small internet providers if sports content was bundled up with broadband and sold as a package.
But Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said that he had no concerns about the deal that was finally struck.
First NZ Capital analyst Greg Main said any impact on Sky Television would be small, but he expected Telecom to follow up with other content partnerships.
One option might be for it to join up with an online movie provider such as Quickflix, he said.
‘‘They could also be enabler for some of ‘second tier’ sports that also want more online coverage.’’
Forsyth Barr analyst Rob Mercer said he saw the Premier League partnership as a ‘‘purely marketing’’ matter, rather than one with broader implications for the market.