That may sound OK for Sky as far as broadband is concerned but it would be disastrous for Sky's overall business.

Sky doesn't report profit by segment but from what they have disclosed the proportion of their operating profit which comes from broadband / phone is approx 15%. In contrast approx 85% comes from TV.

That's not to say that broadband / phone isn't important - it generates some profit and its bundling helps the TV business by tieing people in, creating inertia and thus reducing churn. And of course there are economies of scale etc.

But even so, broadband / phone is very much a secondary consideration for Sky.

With BT it's the other way around in the sense that phone / broadband was the original core business and they then (originally) added TV to reduce phone / broadband churn.

So - in the above sense - Sky's and BT's businesses are mirror images in terms of their consumer markets (BT also, separately, also operates in other markets).

However, I think, proportionately, TV is now more important to BT than phone / broadband is to Sky - because the Champions League has taken BT's TV business to another level with BT's TV platform growing subscribers by 60% over the last 2 years - a phenomenal rate of growth.

The other key point is that TV offers far greater potential for revenue generation. It's possible to charge people £50 / £60 / £70 for TV whereas it's never going to be possible to charge at that kind of level for phone / broadband. Thus the potential with phone / broadband is capped much lower than it is with TV.

Yes, I'm sure that's right - but the question is which rights fit into which category - because in many cases it may not be obvious!

As previously posted there is actually very little scope for Sky to lose / drop any rights prior to Summer 2019 anyway - when all of PL, FL and ECB expire.

The only notable contracts expiring by the end of 2018 are as follows (in expiry date order):

Already expired - PGA Championship (ie the major itself, just 4 days)
April 2017 - Masters (partially shared with BBC)
May 2018 - EC / WC qualifiers (*)
May 2018 - La Liga
May 2018 - European Champions Cup rugby (shared with BT - which has better picks)
December 2018 - European Tour golf (includes Ryder Cup)
December 2018 - ATP Tour tennis

So which of the above go into which category?

If we consider golf - the majors and the Ryder Cup are the pinnacle events - and the only events which draw big audiences. But the European Tour fills a channel in daytime from Thurs to Sun almost 52 weeks per year.

If we consider tennis - Sky no longer has any grand slams. So what about the ATP Tour? It's the only tennis they have and fills large amounts of airtime for approx 20 weeks per year. So dropping it means both no tennis at all and big holes in the schedule.

Of the above list I think La Liga and European Champions Cup rugby would be the two which would at least appear to most fit the criteria for being dropped.

(*) Reported almost 12 months ago that Sky has renewed these rights (and indeed extended them to include England's Nations League games) - though no formal announcement made.

With the European Club rugby as discussed in the rugby thread the authorities have said they only want one pay TV company for UK next time as sharing BT and Sky hasn't worked.

I can see BT being in pole position for this especially with their links to the English clubs.

Sky will have to bid something but I can see BT getting all of this next time.

Sky basically have a big say with European Tour Productions on the coverage - so I'm pretty sure that will get done and dusted.

Interesting that Sky have let the PGA Championship lapse- not sure how much it costs but if Sky were to lose it then their "Home of Golf" mantra would take a hit.

I tend to agree. Sky, ETP and The Golf Channel appear to act as one working unit and it would be a disaster for the sport to be split between two pay providers. Golf needs to have a single pay tv home.

Sky sponsoring the British Masters is another factor, too.

It seems to me that the PGA Championship is just too convoluted to work as a major audience draw. Most people aren't aware of the standings and calculating what is going on is tricky.

You chose to quote only one sentence which on it's own is out of context with my overall points made. To clarify if the EPL was lost to a foreign buyer the market share between SKY and BT would probably remain the same as sport has been a main driver to retain broaband share for both BT and SKY. My second sentence puts this point into context because if SKY did lose the EPL and major sport rights to BT then BT would be in a very strong position to use sport as a driver for broadband and SKY would probably lose broadband along with sports subscribers.

The decision will depend on how other subscriptions and overall revenue are affected. BT entered sports bidding to address the loss of market share in their broadband to SKY. SKY bid high in the last round to protect their overall subscription base. It's a delicate situation for both BT and SKY if both lost the EPL rights to a foreign buyer then there wouldn't be much change in the overall broadband market share. If however SKY lost the rights to BT then there is every chance they would lose a lot of broadband subscribers with it. Then as I have posted earlier there is likely to be many changes in the US with AT&T taking control of Time Warner and Disney could well bid for Netflix.

Can someone remind me of the remaining overseas Cricket tour rights amount the other test nations apart from Australia, and when they expire. And who will go for them when they come up for renewal. Thanks.

I wasn't trying to take your post out of context - I understand what you are saying.

Of course (as per your second sentence) - if BT won Sky's (primary) PL rights - then Sky would lose broadband subs as well as sports subscribers (and TV subscribers as a whole). That goes without saying - it's blindingly obvious.

My point - and I think it needed to be made - is that as far as Sky is concerned broadband is very much a secondary issue.

I think you're probably thinking of the FedEx Cup play-offs - which are part of the PGA Tour - for which Sky has the rights until 2021.

The PGA Championship is the 4th major - ie one 4 day event each year - there are no complications with points or standings.

But like the other majors its rights are sold separately - as it's organised by the PGA of America, not the PGA Tour.

Sky could still renew these rights – their contract just expired with the 2016 event.

The PGA of America has renewed its international distribution agreement with IMG for 2017 to 2021 and presumably IMG will be in the process of auctioning UK rights.

http://img.com/news/news/2016/februa...f-america.aspx

BT has Australia until 2021

Sky has:
- India until 2018
- West Indies until 2019
- South Africa until 2020
- New Zealand until 2020

Sky also has Sri Lanka but only England tour in 2018 I think - not certain.

Sky had the branding of the "Home of Golf" for years... Probably before they even had the Masters... and certainly before they got The Open.


As mentioned elsewhere you mean the Fed-Ex Cup playoffs rather than the PGA Championship (which is the 4th major, but kinda less prestigious one)...

Although the Fed-Ex Cup is slightly tricky with the big changes points wise during the playoff phase I think it has grown here and the US to be seriously popular. Sky had a far bigger team/OB for that than the European Tour finale today in Dubai.

yep they signed Sri lanka out of the blue couple of years ago saying they showing Sri lanka vs england in 2015 and 2018.
great piece of work from Sky since 2018 won't be cheap now but they must have gotten it for a good price when they signed it.
They got most of england games tied up since 2020.
doubt many deals will be signed after 2020 considering ICC/ECB still have no idea how the cricketing landscape will look like then.
No fixtures are announced yet either.

But the 4pm Sunday game is very often hard to sell as "game of the week"

There have been some bloody awful picks for the Sunday 4pm game so far this season

And our game v Boro was really poor as well (and we won..)

I doubt the Stoke match this week will be a classic either!

Rumours today that Amazon may try to bolster their Prime offering with sports rights. What they'd go after is anyone's guess.

Linky?

I thought it was a decent game yesterday but some of the selections have hardly been must watch games.. Maybe SKY are holding back the big Sunday 4pm games until after Christmas

PS hope you lose Saturday but that's on BT Sport

I think you can count on one hand the times ive made the effort to watch the Sunday games on TV this season. They've been really bad picks. Like this weekend, (No disrespect the Boro or Chelsea fans here) the 4pm game was not a game that's going to get the juices flowing and the desire to get infront of the TV and watch!
Same with the MNF tonight. But we had the game (on paper) of the weekend kicking off at 12:30pm Saturday, on Sky!!

Good to see Sky remembering it's a British audience! Late on Sunday morning during the DP World Tour Championship golf (won by an Englishman) they were still billing Sunday evening on Sky Sports 4 as being live coverage of the men's PGA Tour event from Georgia with no British interest and ladies LPGA Tour Championship highlights from Florida later. Then they switched it at some point during the afternoon to be live LPGA Tour coverage because English player Charley Hull was leading after the third day and went onto win. Good on you Sky!

There have been some bloody awful live games at anytime. Liverpool v United was one of the biggest letdowns of all time. United v Arsenal was pretty dreadful too, these games are usually highlights of the season. Maybe Chelsea v Spurs will buck the trend.

My wife made a fairly objective comment when I flicked through the highlights yesterday, she said I wished you had done that 39 years ago, we've watched more TV and films together than we ever have before. Probably sums up why viewing is down, strangely after three record breaking years in the US, Premier League games are down 17% this season. It's like everything saturation leads to people becoming more discerning and as a result only too willing to give many of the games a miss. Anymore big games that disappoint will see people not bother with them either.

The Qualifers didn't pull in good figures , teams playing each other 4 and 5 times a season is way to much for most arm chair fans , Not sure on cheap as they use way too many pundits and they have cut back on other RL shows Backchat , Boot n all have gone Full time has been cut to 30 minutes no re runs of games and the highlights are just 15 minutes