FA Premier League TV rights 2019-22

icdg

We used to have threads for these auctions, but anyways...

The Premier League have tonight announced the winners of their U.K. TV rights deals for 2019-22

Sky have won 4 packages including Super Sunday (KO times move to 2:00pm and 4:30pm), Saturday Night Football, Friday Night Football/Monday Night Football. This includes a small number of late Saturday kick offs.

BT now return to the Saturday 12:30pm slot.

Two packages remain unsold - these comprise 4 full rounds of fixtures to be played midweek or bank holidays. Sky are unable to win both these packages and there is some speculation regarding Amazon targeting these.

ziggyman17

BT cutting back on their spending.. I feel they have missed a trick by getting the Saturday lunch time kick offs, the Saturday evening packs would have been better, Sky with the lions share, ridiculous that they can not bid for the remaining packs, which means the paying customers will have to fork out on another sub if they want to watch all the games... I feel this will be the last Premier league rights to be sold like this,

Schwanz

For me there is no way they're announcing this already if the two packs are not going elsewhere.

3 providers incoming folks imho

Mossy Monk

How much are they paying for these rights? Subscribers should be preparing to empty their wallets.

icdg

Actually, for the very first time ever, the overall costs of Premier League rights has dropped, by about £0.7bn. (Assuming they don’t make it up if and when they sell the final two packages). I said in another thread that I couldn’t see Sky risking a lower bid, but I’m happy to have been proven wrong on this. Sky have bet the house on a lower bid (knowing that other bidders know exactly what they bid last time out) and won spectacularly. They now control all first picks, get the better rated Saturday 5:30pm (instead of 12:30pm), get the new Saturday 7:45pm slot, and most of what else they had before.

BT - back to the early slot, less games, no first picks, and no midweeks - and paying more for the privilege to boot.

What happens with the final two slot? We don’t know. Difference of opinion out there on whether a third bidder has meant these have gone to another round. The other scenario, and potentially bad news for the PL, is that no one has bid the reserve price and that is the reason these packs haven’t been awarded. The two packs consist of three midweek rounds and one bank holiday round. Winner has to televise all games, which in the three midweek rounds will kick off simultaneously. Not a great offer to sell an entire subscription on just two games really.

mikeym

It would be a disaster if there were 3 companies sharing the Premier League rights unless one of the FTA Channels got One of the Smaller less attractive package.

icdg

One of the FTA channels won’t get them. You have to be able to not just televise but produce ten matches at the same time. That’s a tall order for any broadcaster never mind a free to air channel that realistically will never be able to do it. How will it make money on it when the audience will be split ten ways?

(Someone will mention NBC in the US does do this on the last day of the season. Yes it does. As an overseas broadcaster it also doesn’t have to pay any of the production costs of doing so. Only one of the games is actually on the free to air NBC network and the others are all on pay-TV outlets or NBC’s pay steaming service).

Schwanz

Wouldn't is be only a great thing to see ITV/BBC/C4 or 5 getting some games. The growth of the game needs it but most likely will never happen again unfortunately.

Wonder will this deal be magically the same for us Irish??

Looking forward to see who gets these last two packs & of course not forgetting the 3pm Irish.

ArmaniJeanss

I don't think the 'broadcasting 10 games at the same time' for the midweek packages will actually happen.

It's the nature of the midweek fixtures that it ends up with Tuesday being a more logical time for some of the games and Wednesday being best for the others. This can be influenced by other fixtures (who was on Super Sunday the preceding weekend and who is on early Saturday the following weekend) and other extraneous factors like crowd control in London or non-football events taking place in the smaller cities.

A split of 5&5 or 4&6 over 2 nights would make it a more attractive package for broadcaster & viewer, and reduce production costs that have been mentioned above whilst still keeping the overall concept intact.

Mossy Monk

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

A split of 5&5 or 4&6 over 2 nights would make it a more attractive package for broadcaster & viewer, and reduce production costs that have been mentioned above whilst still keeping the overall concept intact.

That's how it is done now. I don't see that changing.

icdg

There’s some speculation that they’ll withdraw the unsold packages and retender them with exactly that arrangement.

Either way, this auction has to be looked upon as somewhat of a disappointment (though only comparatively -they are still taking in a massive amount) for the Premier League. They’ve never dropped income and never failed to sell a package before. And it appears there’s no new bidder looking to blow Sky and BT out of the water. This time.

Schwanz

WTF

Schwanz

icdg wrote: »

And it appears there’s no new bidder looking to blow Sky and BT out of the water. This time.

Yep, Sky still there as top dog but I imagine someone massive online applying pressure next time but we'll see.

The friendly deal between BT & Sky probably helped them both get the deal for cheaper this time and it looks like it was a very smart deal for them both to pucker up and become mates.

icdg

MikeyMacDonagh has already been banned. For the avoidance of doubt, he would have been given a permanent ban for spam if that were not the case

icdg

Strong rumours about now that Amazon has bought one of the remaining packages, comprising one bank holiday and one midweek programme.

Edit: and BT have bought the other remaining package, one midweek and the new “split weekend” Seemingly this package also includes Irish rights

http://sport.bt.com/football/bt-sport-adds-20-premier-league-matches-to-its-line-up-from-the-2019-20-season-S11364276494546

icdg

And the 3pm rights...back to Setanta????

https://www.premierleague.com/news/708008

Seemingly they also get the rights Amazon won in the UK. Sky and BT get all the other packages they got in the UK of course.

Brian017

Officially confirmed on twitter now
https://twitter.com/richard_conway/status/1004673497052909568

icdg

I’m trying to figure out why that Premier League announcement is referring to Premier Sports rather than eir Sport....very interesting indeed....

Delta2113

icdg wrote: »

I’m trying to figure out why that Premier League announcement is referring to Premier Sports rather than eir Sport....very interesting indeed....

- Nothing to do with Eir!

kooga

so Saturday afternoon games at 3pm in ROI are on premiersports? so as per the post above does that mean those games are on eir sport ?

Package F seems to differ between the UK and ROI are we losing out on games?

icdg

Well, up to now (and was still the case last time I checked a few days ago, eir Sport 2 was still identical to Premier Sports (advertising and on air branding included).

This Irish Times article though seems to indicate that eir and Premier Sports are (since April) now formally “divorced” from each other, which would pave the way for Premier to enter the market in their own right. I’d argue that the last thing the market needs is a fourth pay TV company, but however:

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/former-setanta-owner-secures-irish-rights-to-53-premier-league-matches-1.3522560?mode=amp

No we’re not losing out, at least in principle -Premier Sports won the package of twenty games Amazon won in the U.K., and the 33 3pm games.

snaps

Amazon have rights to show 2 full rounds of all games at Christmas? Or Is this just the UK? Wow, at least 4 providers needed now to watch EPL. As per usual the consumer is getting shafted, especially when you see how other EU and worldwide countries get the rights to all matches on one platform.

icdg

Just the U.K., Premier Sports in Ireland. First time ever that U.K. and Ireland have different rights holders for same package.

Badabing

Presumably Premier Sport can sub license the games to Eir Sky etc..? They will have games on Stephens Day aswell

irishfeen

If Eir and Premier Sports break the agreement at the minute then this is an unholy mess from our point of view, Premier Sports won Pro 14 rights in the U.K. and Eir in Ireland too.

I don’t understand how they think 4 different subs in Ireland could work!

icdg

I suspect if there is a sublicense, it will be to eir. However the more appalling vista, and the implications of that Irish Times article, is that eir and Premier Sports will now go their separate ways - the Pro14 deal being the last deal they did jointly - and that Premier Sports will now enter the ROI market as a separate service in their own right.

I already pay for Sky and BT/eir. I’m not sure I want to pay for Premier Sports too.

Eirsport 2 is still carrying stuff with the Premier Sports logo on it. But come August 2019 is there the possibility that Premier, if its a separate entity, will have its own sub? That means the Irish market will have 3 subs for the PL. Ridiculous IMO, most people are just gonna say no I suspect.

irishfeen

If they do separate then that’s certainly me out, I am not paying for Sky, Eir and Premier Sports and I suspect I’m not alone.

lertsnim

And then they wonder how can they stop piracy.

icdg

It will be 3 subs in the U.K. too to be fair, with Amazon, and the package of rights Premier Sports have won is better than that of Amazon. However the separation of Premier and eir Sport is the big joker in the pack.

Badabing

Still no official response from Premier Sports, not on their twitter page anyhow. Interesting to see what they say about it and what they will do with the rights.

irishfeen

The only other thing I can think of is that with Premier Sports winning the rights for 52 games is that maybe the PL will allow Premier sublicence back the games to Eir in order for club quotas not to apply for the 3pm games because of their partnership with BT.

I don’t even know if that’s possible..

Currently Premier sports is £10pm in the UK. If no sub letting deal materializes you're looking at a serious financial outlay for PL football from August 2019 between all three (Sky/BT/Premier).

Plus don't forget the Eir/BT arrangement is also due to expire next Summer. Quite a bit of uncertainty for customers of all these channels in the months ahead!

icdg

I don’t get personally why you’d buy these just to sublet, it seems an odd move when your prospective buyers have already refused to pay the price you have.

The worst outcome would be Virgin subletting the rights, effectively making customers chose between themselves and BT/eir.

lertsnim

icdg wrote: »

The worst outcome would be Virgin subletting the rights, effectively making customers chose between themselves and BT/eir.

And cutting out anyone with no access to Virgin Media.

Agent Coulson

There is no way Premier Sports will make any money off those games if the set up on their own no one will buy them as another sub adding to what they pay for Sky & Eir.



Sub Licence them to Eir is the only way to go to make their money back with a small profit that I can see.

Brian017

I also have my doubts about people subscribing to another service just for the 3pm KOs, a whole midweek round in December, and the St. Stephen's Day round.

icdg

Ideally Premier and Eir Sport would continue their close partnership and eir would show these games. After all they were still buying rights together (the Pro14) as late as last month. But something tells me that if that was happening, the announcement would have been made that eir Sport had acquired the rights rather than Premier Sports. As the Irish Times article linked to indicates, Michael O’Rourke has left his eir Sport role and that seems to signal the formal end of the eir - Premier Sports partnership, though we are yet to see the impact on air.

irishfeen

So we are left with this live Premier League Set-up in Ireland from 2019/20 to 2021/22.

Sky Sports (128 matches per season)

Package B - 32 matches at Saturday 17:30
Package C - 24 matches at Sunday 14:00 and eight matches at Saturday 19:45
Package D - 32 matches at Sunday 16:30
Package E - 24 matches at Monday 20:00 or Friday 19:30–20:00 and eight matches at Sunday 14:00

BT Sport (52 matches per season)

Package A - 32 matches at Saturday 12:30
Package G - 15 matches from two midweek fixture programmes and five matches from the split weekend

Premier Sports - (53 matches per season)

Package F - 33 Saturday 15:00
Package F* - 20 Games on St. Stephen's Day and one midweek fixture programme.

* Amazon Prime in UK

channelsurfer2

perhaps premier will leverage all their uk rights such as nhl into a standalone roi subscription and seperate from eir sports 2 ( which is mostly a premier sports clone)?

afatbollix

Eir and Premier are ran from the same room. They are still on talking terms.

Id say they will just geo block it on the sat like they do at the moment.

dublinman1990

I heard Amazon also have rights for a magazine show after screening of the matches for the EPL. There is some talk about who will host the games for Amazon. Will they have the responsibility to host it themselves using their own feed and broadcast team or will be broadcast from the IMG PL feed?

BT have said they paid an extra £90 million for the 20 PL games. The total cost is £975 million over three years.

https://www.btplc.com/news/index.htm#/pressreleases/bt-sport-adds-20-premier-league-football-matches-to-its-line-up-from-2019-slash-20-season-2533597

icdg

afatbollix wrote: »

Eir and Premier are ran from the same room. They are still on talking terms.

Id say they will just geo block it on the sat like they do at the moment.

That would be the best outcome for all, but for the moment I don’t see eir Sport jumping up and down about this, compared to the big media event they had last month when themselves and Premier Sports pulled off a massive coup and won the Pro14 rights. (In fact I’ve never seen such silence about an award of Premier League rights before. Not a peep out of Premier Sports about what they plan to do with the rights. Not so much as a tweet).

As for Amazons production arrangements, well that is what made these particular rights such bad value for money. The rights holder is required to fund the production of all the games in the package even though (with the midweek round) they will either all or a significant number of them will be airing simultaneously, meaning your audience is split.

kooga

icdg wrote: »

That would be the best outcome for all, but for the moment I don’t see eir Sport jumping up and down about this, compared to the big media event they had last month when themselves and Premier Sports pulled off a massive coup and won the Pro14 rights. (In fact I’ve never seen such silence about an award of Premier League rights before. Not a peep out of Premier Sports about what they plan to do with the rights. Not so much as a tweet).

As for Amazons production arrangements, well that is what made these particular rights such bad value for money. The rights holder is required to fund the production of all the games in the package even though (with the midweek round) they will either all or a significant number of them will be airing simultaneously, meaning your audience is split.

maybe the games will be in HD on Freesports but geo blocked in the UK

lertsnim

kooga wrote: »

maybe the games will be in HD on Freesports but geo blocked in the UK

Isn't Freesports FTA and the HD version testing FTA. There's no way premier league games will be FTA and if FTA cannot be geoblocked.

Schwanz

icdg wrote: »

I don’t get personally why you’d buy these just to sublet, it seems an odd move when your prospective buyers have already refused to pay the price you have.

The worst outcome would be Virgin subletting the rights, effectively making customers chose between themselves and BT/eir.

Interesting point, I've a feeling though that BT rights could be bought for Ireland by either Virgin or Sky which will see that issue sorted out.

Virgin must now put BT back on it's network or there will be a major outcry.

icdg

I suspect the pressure to get BT/eir back will probably come more now from the rugby union fandom. From September onwards the Pro14 and Heineken Cup move both to the eir Sport pack. There’ll be one Heineken Cup game each week on both TV3 and Channel 4, but that’s the sum total of Irish professional club rugby available on the Virgin Media platform next year. (The Channel 4 game more often than not will probably not feature Irish clubs).

Whereas Sky Sports still have the lions share of the Premier League rights notwithstanding BT and Premier Sports gains.

Schwanz

icdg wrote: »

I suspect the pressure to get BT/eir back will probably come more now from the rugby union fandom. From September onwards the Pro14 and Heineken Cup move both to the eir Sport pack. There’ll be one Heineken Cup game each week on both TV3 and Channel 4, but that’s the sum total of Irish professional club rugby available on the Virgin Media platform next year. (The Channel 4 game more often than not will probably not feature Irish clubs).

Whereas Sky Sports still have the lions share of the Premier League rights notwithstanding BT and Premier Sports gains.

I suspect Virgin if they didn't directly acquire BT themselves or indirectly through Sky wouldn't honestly care about the "Eir Pack" once they had these new rights via Premier themselves with Sky Sports's EPL games too on their network.

It's an interesting turn of events and the Setanta boys have sprung us a surprise once again. Kudos to them.

swoofer

wow this has me foxed. i get eir sport FREE with Eir Broadband but if I wanted eir sport as a standalone its 27.50 euro pm. Now in 2019 a channel that broadcasts to the uk gets rights for EPL for Ireland? So eir will have no EPL and cant charge 27.50 so any reduction could pay for Premier sports but cant see eir reducing BB. Sky will have to reduce subs as they are loosing stuff hand over fist.

Ah I see it now bt/sky available in ireland as one sub, eir cease sport. Premier becomes new setanta back to square one.

mikeym

Nobody is going to fork out money to Three different Providers for Live Premier League football.

I presume Premier Sports will do a deal with Eir and Virgin to show the 3pm kick offs and the matches during December, I cant see it surviving as a stand alone premium channel.

IMO Im a bit surprised that Sky lost the 3pm kick offs, Irish Sky Sports subscribers fork out enough money for the Sports channels.

Where the viewing figures for the 3pm games so poor so that Sky thought that it was bad value for money to renew the deal?

irishfeen

mikeym wrote: »

Nobody is going to fork out money to Three different Providers for Live Premier League football.

I presume Premier Sports will do a deal with Eir and Virgin to show the 3pm kick offs and the matches during December, I cant see it surviving as a stand alone premium channel.

IMO Im a bit surprised that Sky lost the 3pm kick offs, Irish Sky Sports subscribers fork out enough money for the Sports channels.

Where the viewing figures for the 3pm games so poor so that Sky thought that it was bad value for money to renew the deal?

Because of team quotas the standard of 3pm game on Sky last year were absolutely piss poor - if they got a few thousand per game for most of them id be surprised.