Premier League to sell rights to 168 live games; tender issued today.
fodg09
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Tender has been issued today.
5 packages of 28 games, 2 of 14.
The FT says the additional matches are on Friday nights.
https://twitter.com/johnplunkett149
5 packages of 28 games, 2 of 14.
The FT says the additional matches are on Friday nights.
Premier League will sell 168 live games, up from current 154, in bid top £3bn deal in 2012. None on Sat 'blackout' 2.45-5.15pm
Premier League will sell 5 packages of 28 games, 2 of 14 games. No single b'caster allowed buy more than 126 matches
https://twitter.com/johnplunkett149
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VPN's or big satellite dishes still required to get all 380 games which should all be legitimately available here anyway.
Currently:
A (26) - 5
B (26) - 5
C (26) - 5
D (26) - 5
E (26) - 4
F (12) - 2
G (12) - 2
Total = 28
So it's an interesting one - if the 28 game packages are all held at max quota of 5 then effectively all the extra games would be of the lower key variety, subject to:
- E being pushed from 4 to 5 (looks like no brainer)
I guess the 14 game packs could go to 3 - but if they do they become pro-rata more big team skewed than the bigger packs.
If they push all the 28 game packs to 6 then we would be getting very close to Man Utd and Liverpool being shown literally every week.
Suspect they may go for halfway house along the lines of:
6,5,5,5,5,2,2 would be 30
6,6,5.5,5,2,2 would be 31
6,6,5,5,5,3,2 would be 32
6,6,5,5,5,3,3 would be 33
(168/154) *28 = 30.5 implies they will go for 30 or 31 - last time they upped the cumulative max broadly in line with the total number of games.
A split of the rights analogous to the current arrangement would be 126 games on Sky (4x28 + 1x14) and 42 games on BT (1x28+1x14).
However since we know nothing about the contents of each package it is impossible to rule whether such a set up is likely again IF both broadcasters are happy to retain the current set up and there are no external forces get involved...
The only thing we can probably be certain of is that one of the 14-game packages has the midweek rounds, much like one of the 10-game packages does right now. Will the remaining games in this package be allocated to Friday night? Who knows, but the next couple of months could be interesting...
What was the gap between the tender being issued last time and the closing deadline? 3 months or so?
PSG always play Friday night if they have a Tuesday Champions League match
The Trouble is what happens the week before, the club may be playing midweek !!!
I thought it was less than that - about 4 weeks?
According the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30451616
The article also mentions that the opening game of the season is likely to be a Friday night match.
Edit: According to Reuters...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/britain-soccer-tv-idUSL6N0TW2SV20141212
Your right - tender issued 3rd May 2012, rights awarded June 13th 2012.
I guess it could take a bit longer this time because of the Virgin complaint* and perhaps more importantly, the Christmas break.
*although the fact they have issued the tender relatively early perhaps suggests they don't see the Virgin complaint as an issue, i.e they are going to continue on as usual.
http://www.ft.com/fastft/250561/post-250561
So it seems that only one of the packages will include the Friday night games. This rules out the midweek / BH 14-game package from including these (up to) 10 games, but they could still be part of the other 14-game package.
Here we go, I'm trying to piece things together already!
I think we can now forget the VM complaint as far as 16/19 is concerned - PL would not have issued tender without clearance from OFCOM - no way OFCOM would intervene once tender gone out.
OFCOM said they would speak to the PL re the tender - I'm sure this must have happened - no way PL would go ahead with tender if any uncertainty.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/11290550/Premier-League-kicks-off-auction-clash-between-BT-and-Sky.html
This indicates to me that the Monday night games will be confined to one package and the (up to) 10 Friday night games will all be contained in the same package.
Have we got the structure of a package here? There are up to 18 Mon night games at present, so it looks like a 18 on Mon / 10 on Fri split makes up one of the 28-game packages. In terms of pick order, Mon night has never had first picks before, and I see no reason to assume otherwise this time. That leaves the quota limit, which is currently at four for the Mon night package. Surely it's going to go up to five?
Yes - that looks neat.
The rest then looks fairly straightforward - presumably A, C and D all remain a straight 28 in one slot. B could become a straight 28 and the smaller packs are used for filling in from 28 up to 33 - or keep B along current lines if so desired.
Package A (BT): 26 at Sat 12.45pm
- 13 1st picks
- 13 4th picks
Package B (BSkyB): 16-18 at Sat 5.30pm; 6-7 at Sun 12pm or 1.30pm/2.05pm; 2-3 Bank hols
- 22 3rd picks
- 4 5th picks
Package C (BSkyB): 26 at Sun 1.30pm/2.05pm
- 13 2nd picks
- 13 3rd picks
Package D (BSkyB): 26 at Sun 4pm/4.10pm
- 20 1st picks
- 6 4th picks
Package E (BSkyB): 18-22 at Mon 8pm; 4-8 at Sun 4pm/4.10pm or Sat 12.45pm
- 12 2nd picks
- 10 4th picks
- 4 5th picks
Package F (BSkyB): 12 at Sat 5.30pm
- 8 2nd picks
- 4 4th picks
Package G (BT): 10 Midweek and Bank hols; 2 at Sat 12.45pm
- 5 1st picks
- 5 2nd picks
- 2 5th picks
So essentially 2 extra games are going to be added to each package. As Igloo_Man says if that report is right it's likely Package E would become:
18-22 at Mon 8pm; 6-10 at Friday 20.00
That would leave the 4-8 at Sun 4pm/4.10pm or Sat 12.45pm to go elsewhere, probably split across a few packages?
Makes sense and sounds like something the PL would do, with each auction they seem to try and make the set up a bit simpler in terms of the spread of matches.
So if Sky go into this auction trying to maintain their current position, then they will be looking for 126 matches I guess - even if the games are of lower standard, they wont want to lose MNF.
And if BT are looking for more games, presumably they will be looking for more first/second choice games rather than just more games for the sake of more games?
Yes that sounds possible - presuming 33 weekends and 5 Bank Holiday/midweek rounds then 33 multiplied by 5 is 165. If you add approximately 12 Bank Holiday/midweek games you get 177ish - so about 9 above the 168 indicated.
But then on the last weekend there will be probably be a maximum of 3 matches so that's 2 off already leaving about 7 weekends with 4 games. Presumably some of those weekends will be when it's not physically possible to have 5 live matches such as on the Capital One Cup Final weekend perhaps or around the Festive periods.
1. The Friday nights games. Are these to simply increase the number of games, or are they to help a team in latter stages of CL? The latter may be hard, as a Fri could only be used if the other team has not played on a Wed or Thur before
2. Depending on how packages split, I think Sky will want controlling first picks, and then EITHER all the other first picks on weekend rounds, or first choice second picks as a minimum
3. So many variables with Vodafone, O2 lurking behind Bein Sports and Discovery.
I would probably discount ESPN or terrestrial broadcaster
Really think (and hope) BT will pull out a few surprises.
What they want may well be what they don't get, I will be very very surprised if they have a big control like what they have now.
I think you are right, they will want more control for sure than what they have now.
And they certainly will not want to lose the biggest prize, Sunday 4.00.