Per TVSM:

"Pan-European pay-television broadcast group Sky is becoming more selective about what sports rights it seeks as it focuses more on entertainment content amid shifting viewing habits, according to chief executive Jeremy Darroch.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley investor conference in Barcelona, Darroch said Sky will prioritise the most important rights and let others go, as it reduces its dependence on sports.

“Sport is very important, obviously football is very important, but relatively, every day it is less important than it was and that allows us to make more choices about how much we spend, where we invest and where we choose not to,” Darroch said, according to the Bloomberg news agency................."

http://www.sportbusiness.com/sport-n...ights-strategy

On a similar note, per Bloomberg:

"BT Chief Executive Officer Gavin Patterson also played down the amount the British former telephone monopoly will cough up for upcoming rights. Last year, Sky and BT agreed to pay a record 5.14 billion pounds ($6.4 billion) for the U.K. rights to broadcast live Premier League soccer, an increase of 70 percent.

While European Champions League soccer has been a “great driver” for BT, attracting paying customers, the company won’t spend more than the rights are worth at the next auction, Patterson said at the conference.

“If the price becomes too rich, we’ll have to walk away,” Patterson said."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ence-on-sports

It’s one thing people making comments at a conference and we’ll have to wait and see what happens in practice. But I think the above comments (added to viewing figures data already reported) are at least a significant pointer to the possibility that the very high sports rights inflation we have seen since BT entered the market may be coming to an end.

If the above is the case, it will have implications for all broadcasters and indeed sports governing bodies.

If Sky is going to spend less on “less important rights” then those rights are going to be available for someone else to buy (and buy more cheaply than they might have thought). The most obvious candidate for many of these rights will be BT – in order to broaden its portfolio.

But more opportunities may well open up for everyone else – both Pay and FTA. In particular Eurosport has made a number of acquisitions in recent times and many of these type of rights may well be a good fit for them.

On the other side of the coin it may mean less revenue than expected for some sports governing bodies.

Sports rights have risen primarily to drive and retain subscriptions especially broadband which builds bundling. SKY have built their subscription base over two decades with relatively little competition in that market. The difference today is that SKY are facing greater competition on the entertainment front because Netflix and Amazon are important players offering content that is not only appealing but a cheaper alternative. Netflix have changed the landscape where major US cable companies facing up to rising churn and the loss of nearly 7 million subscribers over 5 years have had to fight back and launch stand alone and cut down models offering the subscribers more choice and cheaper options through cherry picking what they want to bundle. SKY have done the same with NOW TV and is a great option for people who not only want to opt in and out but could have Netflix, Amazon thrown in for little over the price of the entry bundle on SKY especially when you look at the entertainment passes that are constantly on offer for NOW TV.

The test for SKY is that HBO Ceo Richard Plepler wants to control distribution more tightly and has said he likes the Netflix model. Two observations he made is that having a stand alone service outside of the cable eco system allows them to retain the whole $15 dollar subscription instead of sharing it with a cable carrier. He acknowledged it will be a much slower process to build revenue but ultimately the Netflix model is one he thinks fits best as they control international distribution of their original content. How does that bode for SKY when they pay just £275 million for a 5 year contract. HBO would need far less subscribers than Netflix in the UK to make significant gains. There is also a strong possibility that Netflix could be bought by Disney which would make them by far the biggest OTTP.

I suppose the question then becomes what rights are important to Sky, and which ones are not so important.

Premier League
Home International Test Cricket matches
Formula One

I think people agree these are the main 3 rights they have.

Worrying news for Rugby League fans.

Sky's biggest four sports rights contracts in terms of current spend (ie this year) are:

1) Premier League
2) Football League (includes League Cup)
3) ECB cricket
4) Formula 1

However Formula 1 will almost certainly rise to 2nd place in 2019 when their new exclusive contract starts that year. We don't know precisely because PL rights expire in 2019 and the values of Sky's extensions to current contracts with FL (to 2019) and ECB (also to 2019) haven't been disclosed - but the jump in F1 rights is so huge it will almost certainly go 2nd.

It should also be noted that not all rights are comparable - eg in golf Sky has separate contracts for each major. So, eg, from 2017 the Open will be £15m - far less than any of the above but it's only for 4 days so on a per day (or more sensibly per week) basis it's right up there in the top tier. Ditto the Masters and Ryder Cup.

Fortunately the RFL's contracts with both Sky and the BBC run up to and including 2021.

I would think with cricket the ODIs and T20s although not having the cache of Test Matches drive more subscribers as more to watch in evenings and weekends. Tests have a lot of their time weekday daytime when few of their male working age viewers can watch. Will be interesting to see if the ECB get the money they are expecting for the new franchise city based T20s, as they are looking to bid up Sky and BT.

Agree with the comment that sports like rugby league could expect stagnating or falling rights, as union seems to get all the TV interest.

Do sky still have the UK speedway as that is another sport they could well drop as were happy to lose the international stuff.

Can't quite work out if that means they're more or less likely to fill up Sky Sports airtime with random Kabbadi tournaments

Maybe this is the consequence of Sky having had it their own way for too long and now there is a broadcaster trying to compete Sky are having to cut back on the amount they can bid for.

Also too many sports have got used the bountiful money from Sky, that's going to change.

The Schedule fillers do a MASSIVE JOB for SKY. Golf action during the week and Rugby League from February to October play a big role in helping to fill hours of programming as do the likes of speedway and greyhound racing... RL was turned into a summer sport 20 years ago when SKY had little in its schedules for summer but with more sports (notably cricket) taking the SKY shilling Rugby league is now probably the one sport that could be quietly shunted aside or more likely have to make do with less money from the TV company.

Ironically day time schedule fillers are the one thing BT sport significantly lacks

Potentially a good opportunity for BT to pick up exclusive SPFL (current contract expires 2020) and maybe even Scottish Cup rights (2018).

Hope so as Sky's coverage of the SPFL is pants.

Sky are tied into F1 for quite a long time, PL football is always going to be really important to them, golf they have really committed to recently. I'd say outside those, anything could go.

Sky saying they'll be 'more selective' is essentially them saying they spunked too much money on the PL and so have to let some rights go by the wayside because they can't afford to pay for it.
Nowt to do with being more selective to focus on entertainment. Anyone actually believing that might need help of some kind!

WWE fills an awful lot of time for Sky cheaply but it's possible that could eventually go.

BT tend to just fill daytime with back-to-back highlights from the same competition, which is unimaginative, but fills the time effectively, as do the repeats of overnight live stuff on ESPN. Sky have more live content in daytime thanks to golf and cricket, but manage to make non-live daytime look like the drossiest collection of crap imaginable, never showing full replays of anything anymore leaving daytime (and sometimes prime time) full of 15 minute fillers

Surely the likes of Netflix et al makes sports rights more important not less. Sport is about the only thing they can offer that online streaming services can't!

They risk losing HBO at next renewal at least. As said above they want their own streaming service which they already have in Scandinavia. Would give them significantly more money than what Sky pay. They also have significant back catalogue in addition to the new stuff. Although not sure if the talked about £15pm is achievable given Netflix and Amazon are half that and both have high quality new drama which is starting to approach the volume of HBO. I personally think what Netflix charge or even slightly less is the best they could get in UK.

Back to sport isn't tennis something else Sky could drop. They now only have some men's tour after stopping US Open. Could see both Eurosport and BT being interested. Along with golf and cricket it is great in filling up a whole week's coverage for one of your channels, and has a higher income demographic than football.

For those like me where sport got too expensive so I cancelled Sky then entertainment is a big issue. I now dip in and out of NowTV and Netflix to catch up on shows and boxsets. If Sky lost HBO content that would be a big hole in what drives NowTV entertainment pass customers.

The thing is most of the tennis and golf tournaments and speedway, would be (you would think) relatively cheap, so it fills up lots of time, for not so much money.

If Time Warner to launch HBO NOW UK, id be first at the gate with a fist full of money to hand over gladly!
i know im not alone in that either. Look at the success of Netflix and Amazon, HBO would be morons to not get on that, and HBO are not morons.

I see BT going for Tennis because they've had decent success with the WTA rights they have and recently renewed that contract. Sky dropping the US Open was huge but glad Eurosport chose not to sell the rights on anymore but keep them because i personally think Eurosport do Tennis alot better than Sky.
And BT going for Cricket Australia's rights pack was very direct and they've (IMHO) done a decent job of that. id like to see more and i hope they go for the ICC and ECB rights.
Sky are for the picking at the moment with the huge PL bill they have. i don't expect them to be in the UCL bidding either, not like you'd usually expect Sky to be anyway but, as proven, you never know

I'm not sure its good news for the public. At the moment I subscribe to NowTV and for less money get most HBO content and a lot more besides like the Walking Dead and The Young Pope. If HBO break away I'll have to subscribe to HBO AND Now TV to get the same content, presumably for substantially more per month.

Sky sports signed a new 3 year contract in 2016 which reduced the payments to the sport so that Sky just pay the broadcast costs.

So is quite a cheap live U.K. Sport filler for 3hours twenty times a year. Whether they will renew the deal who knows but if they keep removing sports like this,Rugby league and greyhounds they will have live sport outside of the 3 core sports of Football,Cricket and F1