Just catching up on some posts:
Originally Posted by
jda135:
“Sympathies to you and your colleagues at ITV ariusuk. Must be seriously crushing losing these rights. Having seen what ITV put forward, the team tried their best to retain them, but moneybags UEFA went with BT.
.”
Firstly, I also extend my sympathies to you ariusuk since it's been a tough year firstly losing the FA Cup and now the CL & EL. Although jda, "moneybags UEFA" would have gone with Sky and/or ITV if they were the highest bidder too - no reason to slam BT since they were the winner
Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove:
“I still think Sky will not get less than they have now in the next PL auction - because, it will not be in the interests of the PL to effectively create a BT monopoly. As in only one player willing to bid astronomically high to win the lot.”
Um, if you think about it there's a near-Sky monopoly at the moment with BT having some rights. If BT does get the majority of rights, it would simply be a reversal of the current situation.
Originally Posted by
dpmd_London:
“Sad fact. From 2015 we will probably get to see more free NFL games on UK TV then CL and PL games... Something wrong there...
”
Even sadder/stranger, if SBS here in Australia manages to extend their current Champions League rights - we would be getting more FTA games than the UK. For reference, SBS currently shows one live game each night (so two games each mid-week period) leading to the final live along with Wednesday (Thursday in Aust) highlights. The Australian/NZ version of ESPN airs every game live through a combination of ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPN3.com (excluding SBS games which are shown delayed)