Originally Posted by mlt11:
“It's impossible to predict what will happen but if forced to put money on it I think ITV will retain.
I think UEFA will put at least some value on keeping one game per matchday FTA.
One other little pointer could be the FA Cup. If ITV thought they were likely to lose the CL then I think they would have made more of an effort to retain the FA Cup. Whereas BBC actually got the FTA FA Cup rights pretty cheaply (as did BT the Pay rights).
OK, the FA Cup isn't a key property for ITV but I don't think they would want to lose the FA Cup and the CL. That would reduce their ITV(1) football to 8 England games per season (plus WC/EC finals) - plus possibly later stages of EL though of course that is going to auction as well
Especially when ITV is doing so well financially at the moment. Although I guess it could be argued much of the improvement is due to cost cutting and running the business in a much more business like manner - which means not losing money on sports rights.
But at the same time losing the FA Cup and the CL would give ITV a very different feel.”
“It's impossible to predict what will happen but if forced to put money on it I think ITV will retain.
I think UEFA will put at least some value on keeping one game per matchday FTA.
One other little pointer could be the FA Cup. If ITV thought they were likely to lose the CL then I think they would have made more of an effort to retain the FA Cup. Whereas BBC actually got the FTA FA Cup rights pretty cheaply (as did BT the Pay rights).
OK, the FA Cup isn't a key property for ITV but I don't think they would want to lose the FA Cup and the CL. That would reduce their ITV(1) football to 8 England games per season (plus WC/EC finals) - plus possibly later stages of EL though of course that is going to auction as well
Especially when ITV is doing so well financially at the moment. Although I guess it could be argued much of the improvement is due to cost cutting and running the business in a much more business like manner - which means not losing money on sports rights.
But at the same time losing the FA Cup and the CL would give ITV a very different feel.”
I would like to agree but look what's happened in France, because of that I feel their could be a chance of it happening here.
ITV put, lets say, 50million on the table BT put 100mil on the table I doubt very much they would turn down the 100mil.
Saying that I no doubt ITV will be well aware of the serious bid by BT.



