Sky Sports Going Downhill?

Clareman

Just flicking through the sports channels now, there's a lack of sport to be fair

News - News
Main Event - Live Cricket
Football - Championship Season Review
Premier League - Goals 94/05
Arena - Live Rugby League
Action - Wrestling
Golf - WGC Highlights
F1 - Race Replay
Cricket - Live Cricket (same as Main Event)
Mix - Games of Change
Premier Sports - Track and Field
Premier 2 - Same as above
BT1 - Vanarama National League (I don't know what this is)
BT2 - MotoGP
BT3 - Gilette World Sport (used to love this on RTE years ago)
BT ESPN - Baselball talk
Eleven Sports - Darts
Eir - Sports
Eir2 - Champions Cup replay
Eurosport - Swimming
Eurosport2 - Cycling


Thats before any red buttons or club channels or horse racing or whatever. There isn't enough sport to go around

Cork Boy 53

Clareman wrote: »

Just flicking through the sports channels now, there's a lack of sport to be fair

News - News
Main Event - Live Cricket
Football - Championship Season Review
Premier League - Goals 94/05
Arena - Live Rugby League
Action - Wrestling
Golf - WGC Highlights
F1 - Race Replay
Cricket - Live Cricket (same as Main Event)
Mix - Games of Change
Premier Sports - Track and Field
Premier 2 - Same as above
BT1 - Vanarama National League (I don't know what this is)
BT2 - MotoGP
BT3 - Gilette World Sport (used to love this on RTE years ago)
BT ESPN - Baselball talk
Eleven Sports - Darts
Eir - Sports
Eir2 - Champions Cup replay
Eurosport - Swimming
Eurosport2 - Cycling


Thats before any red buttons or club channels or horse racing or whatever. There isn't enough sport to go around

Only about half of those on the above list are Sky Sports channels which is what this thread is about.

icdg

Indeed.

Look, I think there’s a lesson to be learnt here. People have different priorities when it comes to sport and a tendency to say if the sports they don’t like aren’t on, there’s “nothing” on.

There’s been plenty on Sky Sports throughout the summer. Golf including three of the four majors (and the Ryder Cup still to come). Every Formula One race. Cricket may not be popular in this country, but it is to rural England what the GAA is to rural Ireland, and Sky have to think of their customers there too. Ditto for rugby league, massive in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and parts of Lancashire. Not so popular anywhere else, but Sky have a legion of subscribers in Northern England subscribed. For rugby union fans, they’ve had nearly every Super Rugby game, including a thrilling final this morning. And let’s not forget of Irish interest, the GAA championships.

Look, we know the Premier League is the driver of Sky Sports subscriptions. It keeps Sky in business like no other sport, or even football competition, does. So it’s easy to say, if it’s your only interest, that “nothings” on Sky during the summer. I expect though, if that’s the case, you probably wouldn’t have been looking at Sky anyway for most of the summer, given that there was a certain major event in Russia that the stars of the Premier League were all at and was pretty entertaining.

Tigerandahalf

Most people watching the premier league are die hard club fans who want to watch their own team every week. Sky Sports are not offering that so their model will fail. Streaming is the future where all games will be live on demand. Sky Q's streaming product may cater for that but the Premier League/FA will have to see what the fan wants or subscriptions will continue to fall.

Incidentally eir sports will be streaming all of the pro14 games so they are ahead of the game. I presume the Yanks are already doing it.

icdg

The Premier League do not want that model for very good reasons, including the fact that once you had a “team pass” model and could know exactly what teams command what support among subscribers, the pressure from the most supported teams to begin selling their own broadcast rights would be irresistible. Once that happens, see the already wide gap between the Man Uniteds and Liverpool’s and the Bournemouth’s and Burnley’s become so wide that being in the same league no longer makes sense. Then it’s European Super League time.

icdg

icdg wrote: »

The Premier League do not want that model for very good reasons, including the fact that once you had a “team pass” model and could know exactly what teams command what support among subscribers, the pressure from the most supported teams to begin selling their own broadcast rights would be irresistible. Once that happens, see the already wide gap between the Man Uniteds and Liverpool’s and the Bournemouth’s and Burnley’s become so wide that being in the same league no longer makes sense. Then it’s European Super League time.

The PL don't want that model, but Sky themselves do operate a sort of 'sports pass' model to their UK subscribers in that you can get a PL dedicated channel etc and not have to take the other sports channels. I think it's scandalous that this system is not offered to the RoI subscriber base and that people here have to take all the sports channels.

Clareman

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

Only about half of those on the above list are Sky Sports channels which is what this thread is about.

Very good point, what I was trying to show was that even if Sky had all the sport there'd barely be enough for them to fill the channels. I found it interesting when Murdoch was selling Fox he was quoted as saying that the only things people watch live anymore are Sports and News. Personally I find it very hard to watch any sport that isn't live, even avoiding scores to watch a recording is hard not to use the FF button, NFL Redzone is almost perfect TV for me and for the NFL season I tend to book the TV on a Sunday evening for that.

icdg

Deleted User wrote: »

The PL don't want that model, but Sky themselves do operate a sort of 'sports pass' model to their UK subscribers in that you can get a PL dedicated channel etc and not have to take the other sports channels. I think it's scandalous that this system is not offered to the RoI subscriber base and that people here have to take all the sports channels.

I think most people are agreed that it’s incredibly unfair that Sky offer that model in the UK but not Ireland, given that the product is identical. I’ve no answer for you on that one other than Sky obviously believes it doesn’t need to offer that pricing system in this market to retain subscribers.

Tigerandahalf

icdg wrote: »

I think most people are agreed that it’s incredibly unfair that Sky offer that model in the UK but not Ireland, given that the product is identical. I’ve no answer for you on that one other than Sky obviously believes it doesn’t need to offer that pricing system in this market to retain subscribers.

Sky aren't offering it as if they did nobody would take more than 3 channels - no cricket market in Ireland and even F1 is limited. The gaa and rugby they have tends to be on sky arena or action. They are already offering half price sports. I think if they offered hd free and multiroom for €10 max per extra room people would be more inclined to stay.

Bobeagleburger

Facebook want a slice of the pie. Amazon won't be far behind surely.

dr.fuzzenstein

mikeym wrote: »

People pay over €1000 a year for the pleasure to watch Sky Sports and it offers nothing during the Summer months for the football fan.

That tells you everything you need to know about football.

Minderbinder

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

mikeym wrote: »

People pay over €1000 a year for the pleasure to watch Sky Sports and it offers nothing during the Summer months for the football fan.

That tells you everything you need to know about football.

Yes it tells us it’s incredibly popular and that they take a holiday during summer.

mikeym

For anyone that doesnt subscribe to Sky Sports the Man Utd - Leicester City match is on Sky 1.

fman

The debate simulcast on 4 sports channels tonight, second night in a row.

StringerBell

They have been going downhill for a few years now.

Digifriendly

fman wrote: »

The debate simulcast on 4 sports channels tonight, second night in a row.

I can only find 3 it is on via my Sky epg - Main Event/Premier League/ Football. Where is the 4th Channel?

fman

The always loved Mix.

dublinman1990

I heard something today that Sky's brand new PL studios. They are all new virtual setups in the football stadiums which feature either with or without flat panel screens on the walls. If a football presenter or analyst is giving their analysis on the matches; they either look up at the flat panels or pretend to look at something on the green screen or look from a small monitor in between the footage.

icdg

I saw it yesterday and thought they were at Iselworth. Not sure why they would even bother to be at the ground only to set up a virtual set like that.

lertsnim

It looks awful.

Delta2113

On the 3PM game Saturday they had no studio presentation -only used the commentators. Probably because they lost the contract from 2019 and want to save money - some shower.

fman

It really is being "phoned in" now. Noticed they didn't even fill in the programme synopsis on the epg.

holidaysong

Delta2113 wrote: »

On the 3PM game Saturday they had no studio presentation -only used the commentators. Probably because they lost the contract from 2019 and want to save money - some shower.

Where is the 3pm game going in 2019?

fman

So far Premier, whatever they actually plan. Whether to spin off or roll into eir, they haven't been any way clear yet. Possibly depends on if they extend the BT deal or not.