BT spend £80 million to snag rights to Australian cricket from Sky

Daily Mail wrote:England’s cricketers were not the only ones celebrating an Ashes win on Sunday night — so were BT Sport, who have seized the rights to the 2017-18 series Down Under from arch-rivals Sky in a major coup.

In a move that demonstrates BT will challenge Sky strongly on the cricket field as well as on the football pitch, the network have secured the UK contract for Aussie home matches from Cricket Australia for the next five years.

It is believed to be costing them around £70million a year.

The deal’s centrepiece is the next Ashes clash in 2017-18, when the home side will be hellbent on regaining the urn.

Losing that showcase series is a massive blow to Sky, whose cricket coverage has set new standards. Only football is more important to the broadcaster than cricket.

But Sky, following their £11m-a-match Premier League deal, were not able to compete with BT’s mammoth £350m offer for cricket rights, which starts with the Australia v New Zealand series in November.

And BT, as they have shown with their Champions League production, will want to put their own stamp on cricket rather than just hiring Sky personnel.

Sky, having to be more pragmatic with their rights-buying since investing so much in the Premier League, will point to a lot of the Ashes action in Australia taking place overnight.

http://www.dailyfail.co.uk/sport/articl ... -coup.html

Wonder if Sky are starting to wonder if they can compete with this mega bucks spending; they're beginning to get thrashed at their own game.

Bet customers are going to love their Broadband prices rising again because of this.

Wow I'm sorry but that is a massive waste of money.
Wonder if sky would be better off closing sky sports down when the next premiership rights deal expires and just buy in bt sports.

Anyone else wondering if BT can sustain this kind of spending?

Oh thank strawberry float! No more getting up every few hours in middle of night, to check how far along the latest collapse is. :slol:

Can't help but feel that this is a case of the market making it outright worse for the consumer

How does BT's studio coverage of football differ from Sky's? I heard they use a pitch to demonstrate the action... or something. Sky do something similar with former pros for the cricket, and it's excellent due to the great mix of knowledge and entertainment.

Nice to see Sky beaten at their own game.

BT going all out to out moneybag Sky is going to end in disaster.

And it is Skys' fault.

Rog wrote:BT going all out to out moneybag Sky is going to end in disaster.

And it is Skys' fault.

Why is it skys fault? Do you mean because sky started it all? Serious question

Rog wrote:BT going all out to out moneybag Sky is going to end in disaster.

And it is Skys' fault.

It's the fault of the EU banana split who pushed through rules which split up football exclusivity rights. Ending exclusivity was a good move, what wasn't so good was they didn't limit rights being sold to free-to-air TV. I have nothing against BT nor any great love for Sky, but ending of exclusivity/BT's presence means if I want to watch all the sports as I did before, it is going to cost me a lot more than the usual anual price increase from Sky.

Can't wait for Discovery Channel/EuroSport owners to enter the fray. :dread:

A MAJOR backtrack from the Daily Fail...

It is believed to be costing them around £16million a year.

But Sky, following their £11m-a-match Premier League deal, were not able to compete with BT’s £80m offer for cricket rights,which starts with the Australian 2016-17 season.

http://www.dailyfail.co.uk/sport/articl ... z3jfqWwPru

From £70 million a year down to £16 million. That's, erm, OUT by quite a margin. :lol:

I bet BT wishes the story had stayed with original, incorrect price, that way they could get away with any incoming price bumps.

How much did Sky spend on Spanish football? I wonder if their not being able to compete has more to do with those rights than PL ones...

Bye-bye Big Bash :cry:

Great, another sporting event being shown to an even smaller audience.

PCCD wrote:Anyone else wondering if BT can sustain this kind of spending?

They probably can. They get shitloads from Openreach.

Lotus wrote:Great, another sporting event being shown to an even smaller audience.

It's only cricket.

The only looser in all this is the customer, I don't watch much sport thankfully but if I did I would need so many different bloody subscriptions it would cost a friggin fortune all because of the split it who ahs rights to what and I'm sure in some cases (football I think) who has rights to watch matches in a championship, bloody stupid, this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed and the sporting bodies are nuts for selling it this was as it makes it harder for the end fan to actually watch because they need loads of subs or it is all over the place.

wow £100 million is a bit much to spend on cricket

Errkal, it's "loser".

This is not a big loss. Very few of us actually stay up all night to watch us get smashed to bits!

My point is more at the trend of this happening in general not just Cricket.

I'm guessing BT are paying for this with assumed future earnings? If so... :dread:

BT spend £80 million to snag rights to Australian cricket from Sky

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