No doubt they will show the premium stuff for the next few months, get a load of people to sign up to the cheaper package on a 12 month contract then slowly phase out anything decent.
Reminds me, BT are doing BT Sport for a fiver a month if you switch to their broadband at the moment.
I switched from Sky as our special offer 12 month contract was up, and I'm not very impressed with them tbh. It could be a nice sweetener from BT if anyone is interested. (I'm probably just going via the Kodi route as there's not a great deal I'm really interested in tbh)
I am incredibly unimpressed by BT Sport Score (rival to soccer saturday on SSN). Has ex-footballers (Harry, Dublin, etc.) watching premier league games and one bloke at an SPFL game. Takes absolutely no notice of anything going on below the premier league. Poor effort.
Jeff Stelling is an incredible asset to Saturday afternoons. He has a genuine passion for football and knows a lot of lower league players, where they've been and assorted trivia. I watched an interview with him online and he said he spends hours during the week learning stats so it all looks so seamless on the show. Anyone can just read out which team has scored a goal off a screen (BT).
They are probably looking to slow down the migration to Kodi boxes. Making the sport just £18 a month might tempt a few to sign up for that opposed to subscribing to the roulette that is pirated streaming.
They are probably looking to slow down the migration to Kodi boxes. Making the sport just £18 a month might tempt a few to sign up for that opposed to subscribing to the roulette that is pirated streaming.
They undoubtedly are, and it's more than just that. Nobody under 30 is interested in getting Sky and viewing figures are heavily down. The marketing teams are probably working overdrive to reinvent the wheel. I bet the churn rate at the end of the season was huge this year too. And when it comes to switching it back on, plenty will settle for BT's "free" option.
I think the bigger news we had today was Facebook taking on champions league games in the US. If that's the first foray into football rights (the biggest-discussed sport on their platform), we could see a major shift in the UK when the rights come up again.
They are probably looking to slow down the migration to Kodi boxes. Making the sport just £18 a month might tempt a few to sign up for that opposed to subscribing to the roulette that is pirated streaming.
They undoubtedly are, and it's more than just that. Nobody under 30 is interested in getting Sky and viewing figures are heavily down. The marketing teams are probably working overdrive to reinvent the wheel. I bet the churn rate at the end of the season was huge this year too. And when it comes to switching it back on, plenty will settle for BT's "free" option.
I think the bigger news we had today was Facebook taking on champions league games in the US. If that's the first foray into football rights (the biggest-discussed sport on their platform), we could see a major shift in the UK when the rights come up again.
NFL rights have been sold to Twitter and Amazon in recent years... the change is definitely happening.
Well we cancelled our sky sports last month and a day later they sent us a deal for the whole year all sports in HD for £3 a month. Seems like they're in a bit of a panic about kodi.
£50 even for their cheapest package is too much. They need to adapt their pricing model to get people interested, people are used to paying £8 a month for Netflix/Spotify. Sky charge £6 for a day pass!
Plus PL football is definitely losing it's appeal in general imo. At least to the people I know.
Agree with the comments above, I cancelled my Sky in March, when asked why, I just said I don't agree with the money spunked on Football. With regard to Cricket, what with the Ashes going to BT Sport in the winter, they are further losing their stranglehold (however, I must add that the Sky cricket service is excellent), and am concerned that the Ashes is simply going to be Channel 9 relayed over with a huge Aussie bias. Whats the best option for me, living in Luxembourg, for getting Sky Cricket online for the SA Test series?
Ultimately, this will lead to a US takeover of all Sky Sports events a la F1.
Agree with the comments above, I cancelled my Sky in March, when asked why, I just said I don't agree with the money spunked on Football. With regard to Cricket, what with the Ashes going to BT Sport in the winter, they are further losing their stranglehold (however, I must add that the Sky cricket service is excellent), and am concerned that the Ashes is simply going to be Channel 9 relayed over with a huge Aussie bias. Whats the best option for me, living in Luxembourg, for getting Sky Cricket online for the SA Test series?
Ultimately, this will lead to a US takeover of all Sky Sports events a la F1.
A Kodi box with SportsMania. £50 for the hardware and £30 for six months subscription.
Or you could download Kodi to your laptop and watch it on there or run it out to a large TV.
Also Sky will not be able to compete with the availability of all Premier League games on Kodi at 3pm on a Saturday.
What that means is that the only way a fan can guarantee to watch all of their teams Premier League games on TV is to have access to a pirate stream. Even if Sky managed to win all of the football packages they still couldn't provide every game.
If Sky are going to compete they will have to remove the 3pm Saturday blackout and ageee to screen all games every week - I can't see that happening.
If the FL teams all go live home and away on a pirated streaming service in the end there will be almost no one watching Sky.
It's not Sky blocking Saturday 3pm TV coverage! It's the FA. Sky would love to show them. They are not bothered about fans not going to Saturday 3pm games and staying in to watch live Prem.
If it's true that Sky is struggling, as the above posts suggest, why is the Ancient Aussie Scrote trying to to top up his shares to 100%? Or is it just the Sky Sports model that is shaky?
If it's true that Sky is struggling, as the above posts suggest, why is the Ancient Aussie Scrote trying to to top up his shares to 100%? Or is it just the Sky Sports model that is shaky?
It's an interesting question. I'm not sure I fully understand what RM is up to here. It might be that they feel they can fend off the rival bidders, or that they have a plan B for when the packages do finally slip through their fingers. Given how many subscribers would leave should PL coverage no longer be available (I heard a rumour that's as high as 40-60%), if the Sports model fails it's hard to see where they go from there. Sky seem to think VR is the next big thing, but could that really save them?
There's no doubt that they're facing their biggest exclusivity threat since they started, but we won't find out for sure until next year when the bidding war starts for the 20-22 seasons (I think that's the timeline).
Well, the relevant minister, Karen Bradley, said today that she is "minded" to refer his bid to the Competition and Markets Authority "on the grounds of media plurality".
Comments
I switched from Sky as our special offer 12 month contract was up, and I'm not very impressed with them tbh. It could be a nice sweetener from BT if anyone is interested. (I'm probably just going via the Kodi route as there's not a great deal I'm really interested in tbh)
Jeff Stelling is an incredible asset to Saturday afternoons. He has a genuine passion for football and knows a lot of lower league players, where they've been and assorted trivia. I watched an interview with him online and he said he spends hours during the week learning stats so it all looks so seamless on the show. Anyone can just read out which team has scored a goal off a screen (BT).
Major Sky Sports rebrand.
No more 1,2,3,4,5 channels. Replaced by "Sky Sports Football", "Sky Sports Cricket" etc.
Cheapest sport package starts at £18, a lot cheaper than current prices. That'll probably only get you Sky Sports Kabaddi though.
Assume that the sports package as a whole if you want all the sport channels is going to go up slightly as a result...
I think the bigger news we had today was Facebook taking on champions league games in the US. If that's the first foray into football rights (the biggest-discussed sport on their platform), we could see a major shift in the UK when the rights come up again.
Plus PL football is definitely losing it's appeal in general imo. At least to the people I know.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket
With regard to Cricket, what with the Ashes going to BT Sport in the winter, they are further losing their stranglehold (however, I must add that the Sky cricket service is excellent), and am concerned that the Ashes is simply going to be Channel 9 relayed over with a huge Aussie bias.
Whats the best option for me, living in Luxembourg, for getting Sky Cricket online for the SA Test series?
Ultimately, this will lead to a US takeover of all Sky Sports events a la F1.
Or you could download Kodi to your laptop and watch it on there or run it out to a large TV.
What that means is that the only way a fan can guarantee to watch all of their teams Premier League games on TV is to have access to a pirate stream. Even if Sky managed to win all of the football packages they still couldn't provide every game.
If Sky are going to compete they will have to remove the 3pm Saturday blackout and ageee to screen all games every week - I can't see that happening.
If the FL teams all go live home and away on a pirated streaming service in the end there will be almost no one watching Sky.
There's no doubt that they're facing their biggest exclusivity threat since they started, but we won't find out for sure until next year when the bidding war starts for the 20-22 seasons (I think that's the timeline).