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UEFA Champions League on TV
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popeye13
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by casinoman13:
“To this day I firmly believe they did an early deal regarding the Football League etc because they knew they were a threat and wanted to get in before they had a chance of putting a deal on the table.”

Thats the rumour going round with in the broadcasting-employed friends i have.
Someone with a big gob at BT let slip and Sky went to the FL and signed an early deal.
Although others feel the FL should have put the rights to tender and been fair.. But thats another story
Phoenix04
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by Judio:
“ITV 1
Matchday 4

Real Sociedad v Man United (unlucky Man City fans they will never show you!!)”

They'll probably show City away to Bayern in Week 6. Both sides will probably have already qualified by then, but I'd presume the only other British team in action that day, Man Utd, will have as well
coventrywooo
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by popeye13:
“Thats the rumour going round with in the broadcasting-employed friends i have.
Someone with a big gob at BT let slip and Sky went to the FL and signed an early deal.
Although others feel the FL should have put the rights to tender and been fair.. But thats another story”

but would that made any difference, if the FL wanted sky
andy_d77
17-10-2013
quick question

if ITV did lose all rights, what would they spend the initial money on? i presume that itv sport has a budget and that like where i work - if they dont spend it it rolls over, rather than being passed to say itv drama?
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by andy_d77:
“quick question

if ITV did lose all rights, what would they spend the initial money on? i presume that itv sport has a budget and that like where i work - if they dont spend it it rolls over, rather than being passed to say itv drama?”

No, it wouldn't work like that.

If ITV lost the CL there are no other similar sports rights they could buy to replace the CL and there is no other sport that could fill the equivalent slots.

The amount ITV spends on each genre isn't fixed - if this happened spending on sport would be reduced accordingly and the slots would be filled by non-sports programming.

But that replacement programming would be far, far cheaper so the overall total programme spend would fall - though revenues would almost certainly fall as well.
Mark.
17-10-2013
Scheduling issues aside, could losing the Champions League give ITV a big enough cash pot to make a lone bid for Euro 2020 and/or WC 2022?

Or are they happy sharing with the BBC because it keeps the price down since realistically there's no competition?
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by Mark.:
“Scheduling issues aside, could losing the Champions League give ITV a big enough cash pot to make a lone bid for Euro 2020 and/or WC 2022?

Or are they happy sharing with the BBC because it keeps the price down since realistically there's no competition?”

It's not really a question of having a "cash pot" - ITV aren't spending anywhere remotely near any spending constraint.

They'll look at each opportunity on its own merits - ie is it a more profitable thing to do?

I suspect the answer re EC/WC is no - it would massively up the cost of rights - far more than double as total rights value would be higher than otherwise and ITV would be paying 100% not 50% - and ITV simply wouldn't be able to generate enough incremental revenue to make it worthwhile.
hendero
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by mlt11:
“It's not really a question of having a "cash pot" - ITV aren't spending anywhere remotely near any spending constraint.

They'll look at each opportunity on its own merits - ie is it a more profitable thing to do?

I suspect the answer re EC/WC is no - it would massively up the cost of rights - far more than double as total rights value would be higher than otherwise and ITV would be paying 100% not 50% - and ITV simply wouldn't be able to generate enough incremental revenue to make it worthwhile.”

Why would the rights fee more than double? And if it makes financial sense for ITV to have half the tournament, with half the lucrative matches, and taking the battering they inevitably do from BBC over the final, wouldn't it make sense for ITV to bid for the whole thing?

I thought they were happy enough sharing it with the BBC because it would stretch both organisation's resources to fully cover the whole tournament, and each want to placate non football fans with enough regular programming. So, the current arrangement works well enough for both parties, although ITV probably aren't thrilled with sharing the final (if I was ITV I might even say to the Beeb "you have the final. we'll take both semis", or something like that).
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by hendero:
“Why would the rights fee more than double?”

Because ITV would be buying 100% instead of 50%.

If ITV is currently paying X for 50% and BBC is paying X for 50% then for ITV to buy exclusive rights to the lot they'll have to pay more than 2X.

Originally Posted by hendero:
“And if it makes financial sense for ITV to have half the tournament, with half the lucrative matches, and taking the battering they inevitably do from BBC over the final, wouldn't it make sense for ITV to bid for the whole thing?”

Because there is a limit to how much advertising revenue can be generated.

If they offer double the amount of WC slots to advertisers they will not necessarily generate twice as much advertising revenue. Yet costs would be more than doubling.
hendero
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Because ITV would be buying 100% instead of 50%.

If ITV is currently paying X for 50% and BBC is paying X for 50% then for ITV to buy exclusive rights to the lot they'll have to pay more than 2X.”

I get that they would have to pay twice as much, but why would it be more than twice as much? It's not as though they'll get more viewers for the matches they already have.


Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Because there is a limit to how much advertising revenue can be generated.

If they offer double the amount of WC slots to advertisers they will not necessarily generate twice as much advertising revenue. Yet costs would be more than doubling.”

Which is one of the reasons why I don't see why the price would more than double for ITV to have the whole thing on an exclusive basis.
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by hendero:
“I get that they would have to pay twice as much, but why would it be more than twice as much? It's not as though they'll get more viewers for the matches they already have. ”

Because BBC won't give up its 50% share without a very, very big fight.

The World Cup Finals are literally the BBC's most important sports rights contract (or maybe 1st= with the Olympics).

The BBC will be absolutely desperate to retain its WC Finals rights - it's one of the very, very most important things the BBC broadcasts across literally any genre. If ITV tries to win these rights then BBC will put additional resources into retaining them.

So ITV would have to pay a very significant premium to win these rights away from the BBC.
hendero
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Because BBC won't give up its 50% share without a very, very big fight.

The World Cup Finals are literally the BBC's most important sports rights contract (or maybe 1st= with the Olympics).

The BBC will be absolutely desperate to retain its WC Finals rights - it's one of the very, very most important things the BBC broadcasts across literally any genre. If ITV tries to win these rights then BBC will put additional resources into retaining them.

So ITV would have to pay a very significant premium to win these rights away from the BBC.”

The BBC has a finite budget. Let's say for argument's sake the combined UK rights will sell for £100 million per tournament. If ITV says to FIFA, "we'll give you £100 million, but we want the lot", FIFA would ask the Beeb to counter-offer, but they can't double (or more) their world cup spend, especially at a time when the licence fee is fixed. The best counter-offer the BBC could make is to bid say £55 - £60 million to keep half the rights, and encourage FIFA to strike the same deal with ITV. But ITV could call FIFA's bluff, say, "we don't think there's any way BBC will be able to afford £100 million for the whole lot, so take our offer or we're out".

I think it's more a matter that the Beeb and ITV have shared the tournament quite happily the past 40 or so years, it would strain each's resources to take on all 64 matches alone, it would annoy non-football fans, and with 32 matches apiece it works. Plus with Sky and BT frozen out, and Channel 4 and Five not serious players, they are paying no more than market price, probably a lot less.
wolvesdavid
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by hendero:
“The BBC has a finite budget. Let's say for argument's sake the combined UK rights will sell for £100 million per tournament. If ITV says to FIFA, "we'll give you £100 million, but we want the lot", FIFA would ask the Beeb to counter-offer, but they can't double (or more) their world cup spend, especially at a time when the licence fee is fixed. The best counter-offer the BBC could make is to bid say £55 - £60 million to keep half the rights, and encourage FIFA to strike the same deal with ITV. But ITV could call FIFA's bluff, say, "we don't think there's any way BBC will be able to afford £100 million for the whole lot, so take our offer or we're out".

I think it's more a matter that the Beeb and ITV have shared the tournament quite happily the past 40 or so years, it would strain each's resources to take on all 64 matches alone, it would annoy non-football fans, and with 32 matches apiece it works. Plus with Sky and BT frozen out, and Channel 4 and Five not serious players, they are paying no more than market price, probably a lot less.”

If the rights went unsold, any other broadcaster could then join in the bidding as far as I understand (the protected events list doesn't apply if the rights go unsold.)

So FIFA could then sell to the BBC for that increased price for half the tournament, leaving them free to sell to whoever for the other half.
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by hendero:
“The BBC has a finite budget. Let's say for argument's sake the combined UK rights will sell for £100 million per tournament. If ITV says to FIFA, "we'll give you £100 million, but we want the lot", FIFA would ask the Beeb to counter-offer, but they can't double (or more) their world cup spend, especially at a time when the licence fee is fixed. The best counter-offer the BBC could make is to bid say £55 - £60 million to keep half the rights, and encourage FIFA to strike the same deal with ITV. But ITV could call FIFA's bluff, say, "we don't think there's any way BBC will be able to afford £100 million for the whole lot, so take our offer or we're out".

I think it's more a matter that the Beeb and ITV have shared the tournament quite happily the past 40 or so years, it would strain each's resources to take on all 64 matches alone, it would annoy non-football fans, and with 32 matches apiece it works. Plus with Sky and BT frozen out, and Channel 4 and Five not serious players, they are paying no more than market price, probably a lot less.”

All of the points in your 2nd paragraph are of course correct.

The whole thing doesn't make any sense for so many reasons it's difficult to know where to start.

Even if ITV could get 100% of the rights for double what it pays for 50% it still wouldn't make sense because the cost of the extra 50% would still be many multiples of the cost of the soaps which they would replace. And the incremental revenue wouldn't justify that enormous extra cost - because there will be diminishing returns as the supply of WC ad slots rises above a certain level.

But I maintain they wouldn't get the rights for double in any case because:

Yes, the BBC does have a finite budget but WC rights are still a tiny proportion - approx £60m every 4 years vs Licence Fee revenue of £3,500m per year.

So under 2% of LF revenue even in the WC year. Over a 4 year WC cycle it's less than 0.5% of LF revenue.

In an organisation the size of the BBC money can always be moved around to direct at priorities. For starters BBC has just committed £25m per year of new money for the FA Cup. That could easily be dropped again in 2018.

The BBC would certainly pay a lot, lot more than it does now for WC if it had to. If it didn't want to take the lot on then if necessary it could do a deal to share with C4/C5 - it would be a lot of money for C4/C5 but it's perfectly possible BBC might split it say 75:25 with one of them.

And something as colossal as the WC would rate very well on C4/C5 - they may well still be able to make a profit out of it. Indeed it could help C4/C5 long term (through boost to brand, public perception etc) resulting in an adverse impact on ITV going forward.
Steve Williams
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by hendero:
“I get that they would have to pay twice as much, but why would it be more than twice as much? It's not as though they'll get more viewers for the matches they already have.”

One other reason why they'd have to bid more than twice as much as before is because you have to pay extra for exclusivity. If you're just going to offer the same amount of money they paid together for the last tournament it'll be turned down, because under the previous system they got it on two channels, hence double the exposure.

The mention of them not getting any more viewers is the obvious reason why it wouldn't happen, you'd get more big matches but the same viewers watching them all, no new viewers. It's the same as Sky showing all Premier League matches, they're not going to get any more subscribers from showing them all, nobody's putting off subscribing because they don't.

Originally Posted by mlt11:
“The World Cup Finals are literally the BBC's most important sports rights contract (or maybe 1st= with the Olympics).

The BBC will be absolutely desperate to retain its WC Finals rights - it's one of the very, very most important things the BBC broadcasts across literally any genre. If ITV tries to win these rights then BBC will put additional resources into retaining them.”

I absolutely agree with this, it's exactly right. The BBC would lose every other sporting contract before they even consider losing the World Cup and the Olympics (and the Euros as well, which I think are of more or less equal importance to the World Cup). If they ever lost it it would be the blackest ever day for BBC Sport.

Originally Posted by hendero:
“So, the current arrangement works well enough for both parties, although ITV probably aren't thrilled with sharing the final (if I was ITV I might even say to the Beeb "you have the final. we'll take both semis", or something like that).”

But that is ITV's problem, if people prefer to watch the BBC's coverage why should the Beeb be penalised? The channels go into the tournaments with differing perspectives, ITV want the guaranteed revenue so frontload it and go for the attractive group games while the Beeb can afford to take a risk and take the best of the latter stages. They both get what they want out of it. In both 2006 and 2010 the best ratings of the entire tournament were on ITV in the group stages. As far as ITV are concerned the Final is just something they get free.

As for the Champions League, to get back on track, I'm not reading too much into them showing matches on Sky One. As I mentioned on another thread they did that a few years back, when Sky One wasn't on Virgin, seemingly just to rub Virgin's customers' faces into it and make Sky One look more attractive. I think this again has more to do with making Sky One look good in the short term than any long term consequences.
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“I absolutely agree with this, it's exactly right. The BBC would lose every other sporting contract before they even consider losing the World Cup and the Olympics (and the Euros as well, which I think are of more or less equal importance to the World Cup). If they ever lost it it would be the blackest ever day for BBC Sport.”

Agree entirely - it wouldn't just be the blackest day for BBC Sport it would be one of the blackest days ever for the BBC as a whole.

The WC Finals and Olympics are so huge they completely transcend everything - they are absolutely fundamental to the BBC as a whole.

The BBC would fight very, very, very hard not to lose either event and when you think the BBC only spends under 0.5% of LF on the WC Finals they have substantial scope for that fight.

(You have to look at numbers over 4 year period as a whole - as LF doesn't go up and down each year in line with big events - so BBC will look at income and expenditure over the whole cycle).

I would personally rate the EC Finals in a clear number 3 position - as it's not a world event I think it has to be a clear step behind (and as it's a smaller event it provides less content) though I fully agree the BBC would regard it as another very, very high priority.
casinoman13
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by coventrywooo:
“but would that made any difference, if the FL wanted sky”

I think it may of done if it had gone out to tender particularly with Sky knowing Bt could easily of teamed up with BBC again and potentially offering a large increase to what they were going to offer.

I also think Sky made the offer knowing they would then be in a position to offer more for Champions League.

One thing Sky are well aware of is BT have money to match and even go higher so they wanted to take no chances with the League offer.
coventrywooo
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by casinoman13:
“I think it may of done if it had gone out to tender particularly with Sky knowing Bt could easily of teamed up with BBC again and potentially offering a large increase to what they were going to offer.

I also think Sky made the offer knowing they would then be in a position to offer more for Champions League.

One thing Sky are well aware of is BT have money to match and even go higher so they wanted to take no chances with the League offer.”

i do miss the football league live on bbc, in that case then, wouldnt the teams kick up a fuss as most of them need more money...
wolvesdavid
17-10-2013
The Football League went down the route of the broadcaster other than Sky in 2001-2002 when they went with ITV Digital. It was a disaster, and the Football League were rightly criticised for the decision.

I think they would be wary of going with anything other than Sky. Sky are certain to pay for their contract.
wolvesdavid
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by coventrywooo:
“i do miss the football league live on bbc, in that case then, wouldnt the teams kick up a fuss as most of them need more money...”

No because...

1) Sky are certain to pay for the content they show.
2) They give the league good exposure, more than BT could do.

Please note this is not an attack on BT Sport, I watch the channel myself and think its good. I'm also aware of how big a company BT is as well!
Steve Williams
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by mlt11:
“I would personally rate the EC Finals in a clear number 3 position - as it's not a world event I think it has to be a clear step behind (and as it's a smaller event it provides less content) though I fully agree the BBC would regard it as another very, very high priority.”

I'd put the Euros right up there, personally. I know it's not a world event but there are loads of famous teams in it and the England games rate just as well (perhaps because England fans think they have more chance of winning it). And obviously, being held in Europe all the matches are always at convenient times for British viewers, which isn't always the case with the World Cup.
andy_d77
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by mlt11:
“No, it wouldn't work like that.

If ITV lost the CL there are no other similar sports rights they could buy to replace the CL and there is no other sport that could fill the equivalent slots.

The amount ITV spends on each genre isn't fixed - if this happened spending on sport would be reduced accordingly and the slots would be filled by non-sports programming.

But that replacement programming would be far, far cheaper so the overall total programme spend would fall - though revenues would almost certainly fall as well.”

thanks for that.
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“I'd put the Euros right up there, personally. I know it's not a world event but there are loads of famous teams in it and the England games rate just as well (perhaps because England fans think they have more chance of winning it). And obviously, being held in Europe all the matches are always at convenient times for British viewers, which isn't always the case with the World Cup.”

Yes - all good points.

I guess I was really thinking in terms of "prestige", "status" etc - ie if you look back at the last 50 years what are the absolute iconic, standout moments in sport.

But it's a moot point really - I think we can be very, very confident that all 3 events will be remaining on the BBC!
mlt11
17-10-2013
Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“As for the Champions League, to get back on track, I'm not reading too much into them showing matches on Sky One. As I mentioned on another thread they did that a few years back, when Sky One wasn't on Virgin, seemingly just to rub Virgin's customers' faces into it and make Sky One look more attractive. I think this again has more to do with making Sky One look good in the short term than any long term consequences.”

You could well be right.

However I guess what stands out as curious is the timing of this - literally just a couple of weeks before the CL auction closes. Now that could just be a coincidence but I think there has to be a fair chance that it isn't.

Of course even if it isn't a coincidence we simply have no way of knowing what UEFA's thinking on the whole matter will be.
Bex.
19-10-2013
Manchester United game is on Sky 1 on Wednesday as well as SS2
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