http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/03/pub-landlady-premier-league-television-rights
If anybody needed further reminding of why Murdoch's tabloids are so rabidly anti-European Union then here is part of the reason why.......
This is a huge deal, it effectively wrecks the Sky business model for pay TV and News Corp. will throw millions on legal fees to try and get this over-turned.
Unbelievable stuff, the EU is basically saying that EU consumers are within their rights to shop for the cheapest pay TV provider in the EU and there is nothing that national operators like Sky can do about it.
The Dirty Digger will have choked on his cornflakes when he got told about this.
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We are aiming to get back on the Sky gravy train soon. Why wish for it to be derailed?
No way can the UK courts over rule the EU courts.
It could mean that ALL clubs get less cash but still have players signed up on lucrative contracts that they can't break. What then? More clubs going into administration? Even more reliance on a foreign sugar daddy?
I'm sure that Man City and Chelsea could still survive without Sky cash, but could anyone else?
Careful what you wish for.
Just repeating what they said on BBC News
Also two other things will happen. Sky/The Premier League will increase the price for the Greek (and other European broadcasters) to show their football, and as soon as the Greek suppliers are welcomed into the UK market legally they will put their prices up to make more money. It will make more sense to make the service too expensive for their own country if they can now make five times as much money by selling to the UK, where we seem to always pay more than our international neighbours.
I think both Sky and the millionaire footballers will be ok for some time to come.
However, it's then down to each national court to then interpret and apply ECJ decisions. Some do religiously, some don't. Sometimes a decision may be given in one language but when it is interpreted into another language there is a slight change in emphasis on crucial points.
I sometimes have to interpret ECJ decisions as part of my job. Some are better than others. Some are complete bollocks and, having often waited years to get to the stage where the case reaches that level and a decision comes out, it ends up being a complete fudge and not worth the paper it's written on.
"That's life" - as they say in France.
Although it sounds logical to me it's down to the letter of the law, but so far so good and round one to the little guy. However Murdoch's pervasive and malign influence on Britain says to me that this has got a long way to go.
But I'm sure Sky and the other broadcasters will manoeuvre themselves out of it smelling of roses
I should probably declare an interest here as the company I work for has done a lot of work for pay TV operators in this area of cross-border regulation.
In your analysis you are making the mistake of conflating the Premier League with Sky - they have very different interests at stake here.
It is the The Premier League itself that sells its rights overseas - not Sky - and their operations are overseen by a gentleman called Phil Lines who can normally be seen walking around with an immovable smirk.
As a result, Sky has no power at all to tell the PL that it should increase its charges for the Greek operators in question. Sky is a customer of the EPL - a powerful one yes - but still just a customer nonetheless.
Moreover, the EPL rights are really only worth whatever an operator can afford to pay for them and the EPL has already screwed over most of the worlds' pay TV operators for every last penny they can force out of them.
In Hong Kong for example - total TV market of just 2.2 million homes - the EPL persuaded the local cable TV operator, i-Cable, to pay a staggering US$250 million for a three-year exclusive EPL deal!!!
i-Cable only has around 900,000 subscribers now so there is simply no way that they can recoup their investment, it is solely a loss-leader to try and bring more subscribers to the service and then upsell them to other content.
What's more, as we go forward, the arrival of "Connected TV's" will almost certainly radically change the broadcast market anyway by allowing sports rights holders such as the EPL to sell their content directly to subscribers over the Internet rather than via pay TV players.
Interesting times ahead, that's for sure.
It has a unique business model as it straddles both the energy and telephony markets.
The one major service offering it doesn't have (apart from Water which is still not fully deregulated) is TV.
As we now know, BT have its own TV offering via Broadband called BT Vision. It has had limited penetration. We also have Freeview with some top up facilities. We also have one major cable operator - Virgin Media. All three now are able offer Sky Sports as an top up option. Sky have responded by extending its sporting channels as a differentiator.
Telecom Plus Plc - Owners and operators of Utility Warehouse have announced to the LSE that they will shortly be offering a TV package as part of their service offering.
As I understand it they are in negotiations with amongst others BBC, ITV and TalkTalk to provide a Broadband delivered TV service to go head to head with Sky and Virgin. Clearly that will mean Sports and Football in particular. My guess is that they are going to carry both Sky Sports and ESPN or whoever in the future has the rights to the EPL games in the UK.
As I understand it there are regulatory issues to be resolved before this can go live. Time scales could be up to a year or more before they can launch.
That is just a bit of background.
Sky, it seems to me, is in a increasingly difficult position as being both a platform provider and a programme maker/channel operator. I wonder how much longer that can continue?
With new platforms/delivery vehicles available, it seems to me that Sky may be forced to decide on does it make programmes or does it operate as a platform provider?
What would Sky do if it lost its EPL contract to ESPN, for example? As I understand it ESPN is not a platform provider, its a programme maker/channel operator. EPL will require the widest market for its games, so presumably ESPN would approach all the platform providers in the UK - BSKYB, Virgin, BT, Freeview/Top Up and soon the UW consortium, to market its Sports TV channels by subscription. Would BSKYB give ESPN the bums rush?
You say that the EPL will be able to sell directly to internet subscribers. That I understand but somebody has to put together a production to sell. Presumably the EPL will engage a production company to do this? Presumably this could be a company owned by Sky?
How do you see this panning out in practice? Is there still going to be subscription revenue streams available for the EPL from the existing different platforms of, terrestrial, cable, satellite and telephony; or will we see the EPL solely market to subscribers via the internet; or will there be a mix of both?
I hope this makes sense.
As long as we can, who cares?
The sooner the arse falls out of it the better.
I know the discussion has moved on a bit, but I just wanted to comment on this.
I hear what you are saying about clubs being forced into administration if they cannot reduce their outgoings quick enough and I don't want that to happen. However, I firmly believe that if the TV money was reduced we would end up with a more even playing field. Airman has stated on here that the reason why the board offered free season tickets if we returned to the Prem in our Championship relegation season was that the gate money was insignificant compared to the TV money - something seems wrong to me about that.
Also, whilst we languish in the lower leagues what happens to Sky has very little to do with us because we're not subsiidised by them. I'd like to see some of the big boys get their comeuppance!
Interesting insight into the future from other posters - it's going to be an interesting couple of years!
It is only because of potential sky money (after two promotions) that anyone would takeover a club losing 3-5m a year
As long as it remains a collective deal and it doesn't go down the Italian route of clubs selling rights to their own games then we will be quids in
Good point!
I still want to see Sky get a bloody nose though!
Remind you of anyone?
Everyone whines and whines about outrageous transfer fees and player wages, but when there's a risk that the very medium that has been fuelling that growth there's widespread fear and hand wringing. It's daft to suggest that investors are chasing that Sky money for profit reasons, or if they are, they're daft. The model is generally get the extra Sky money and then spunk it on Jimmy Bullard before the cheque's cleared, then use the parachute payments to desperately try and pay the overpriced players that you've wasted your money on before you were relegated, and now can't get rid of because you're paying them too much. If anything a model in which everyone is subject to more sensible governance is more likely to be profitable, regardless of whether 3-5M SKYBONANZA CASH briefly rests in your account.
Hmm... that sounds like I'm defending Sky, which you will know is not the case from my earlier posts. All I'm saying is that they charge the maximum they think they can get away with. It's a very complicated issue because TV money is what created "The Premiership" - the question is whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.
For what it's worth I can only see this playing out in one of two ways:-
1. Clubs will get a bit less cash, and they'll learn to live with a bit less cash
2. Sky will pay a bit more and negotiate europe wide exclusivity and will sub-licence to other european networks at a much higher cost than they're currently paying. So, all will stay the same here, but the Greek premiership fan will either have to pay a lot more, or won't keep getting coverage, because Sky fear UK pubs will get themselves cut-price access to the coverage
No one on CL does that, I'm sure.
The money generated is the reason for most of the excessive nonsense that goes on in football today, the desperation to keep in the Prem, the wages, the transfer fees!
I heard on talksport that the landlady was paying A thousand pound a week, now in any business that seems a hell of a lot of money , especially with most pubs having a real tough time of it at present!.
So one of the staunch defenders of the free market, does not like it when the market becomes free..... or there is 'choice involved'.
Well I am anti-Murdoch so I am biased, good luck to driving these costs down, and well done to the landlady to have the balls to take sky on!
It is enough for the 'Dirty digger to cry in his beer' isn't it,( Cannot see the bloke down at the local can you) how will I sleep at night worrying about sky's profitability, and share price!,...... quite soundly as it happens!
Still Digger, will find a way out, he normally does..........
Whilst Sky have this monopoly. Those days of Charlton or other club supporters, dreaming of European football are now long gone.
If BT have no choice but to share the line with other companies, I do not believe Sky have a leg to stand on - in any court.
OT I know, but apart from in Hull, Kingston Communications have a monopoly on the phones here.
So it's not those who benefit from sky's cash that would feel the force of this decision.