Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

You can't ever rule out anything.

If the likes of Apple, Amazon or Netflix aggressively went after marquee sporting rights and priced it keenly people would certainly switch.

A spotify type deal for football at least would kill it completely, you would have the most supported teams earning the most and a massive drop off to everyone else.

No one saw LIV coming and they have absolutely fractured the sport of professional Golf and harmed it's commercial viability.

Similar would have happened with the European Super League but the fans fought back.

What the international broadcasters and streamers want is not the rights to the Premier League or Champions League, they want the exclusive broadcast rights to Man United, Real Madrid, PSG, etc.

Some of the money men at the clubs want this too.

When you are dealing with greed and vast sums of money, anything can happen in the future.

If Sky or Now TV had a package that was a flat rate of €15 month for Sky Sports (and Extra) in HD on multiple devices, I think that would be an attractive price point.

I know with offers you can get close (well, closer) to this pricing on Now TV - but not everyone is aware of this. I believe the standard pricing for sports on Sky is €69 per month on top of any existing basic TV services and extras (ad skipping, UHD, multiroom). Before you know it, you could be paying €100 - €120 per month with guaranteed annual increases. Plus, your broadband, Netflix, Disney+ etc. on top of this again.

Then you have the drama of trying to cancel services with Sky - which really should be investigated by the CCPC. If you can sign up online, you should be able to cancel online.

This is what annoys people and turns them to illegal IPTV. Sky themselves are not helping the situation at all.

In saying that, IPTV is now very mainstream. There will be a tipping point where Sky and the other broadcasters will be forced to tackle it in some creative new way. I do accept it’s a difficult issue though, especially when IPTV operators are well resourced due to making so much money from it.

Firstly people need to stop blaming Sky for the price of EPL rights, it's the EPL who controls the rights, what can be shown and at what time, not Sky or BT.

And the EPL are also the ones who set the price, so that price people pay for Sky or TNT or Now TV is primarily dictated by the EPL, the clubs, not the broadcaster.

Amazon have a very limited package in the current rights deal but didn't pursue a new one for the next deal.

But there has to be some context around why they didn't pursue a package.

The EPL for the upcoming rights deal extended the duration of the deal and also reduced the amount of packages available while increasing the amount of games available.

Amazon had a very small package last time and it seems were not interested in getting a bigger, longer package this time.

So the idea that the regular streaming services are chomping at the bit to get into EPL broadcasting may not be the case.

What the EPL did with the recent rights package was keep the illegal IPTV streaming wolf from the door for another few years.

They increased the amount of games being broadcast, included all Sunday games, they made the contract a year longer and reduced the number of packages thus you now just have two broadcasters involved rather than three.

EPL rights have been on the decline since BT got on the Sky payment platform a number of years ago, that killed the Sky BT bidding war.

The cost of rights if calculated per game has been reducing since 2016

The 2016/17 – 2018/19 deal was approx £10.19m per game, the current deal (which was rolled over during COVID) is £8.11m per game, and the new deal is £6.2m per game.

The EPL prevented the auction being a s**t show this time by increasing the number of games, reducing the packages and increasing the length of the contract.

There was talk that the broadcasters might try and lowball the EPL this time because of the threat of illegal streaming but the EPL prevented that by doing what I mentioned above.

What they pay per game is moot, they don't charge per game anymore.

The pertinent figures are how much they paid in total and how this is reflected in the sub.

IPTV offer all 360 games on dozens of channels. SKY/BT won't win by offering more choice, because that is impossible.

No it's impossible, because it is impossible to exceed 360.

Another perk to the dodgy box. All the 3pm kick offs. Another thing it does that $ky can't.

What device you going for?

My 3 firesticks all run iptv fine, zero issues. Each cost 30-40 in sale and power off the tv so out of sight.

I appreciate there's some serious hardware out there but a firestick isn't bad.

Chipped. Havent heard that in a long time. So your sky box is taken and then returned to you? Or do you get a new device? Id be interested to know whats being charged and what you get access to.

I suspect someone is being liberal with language. Has to be an IPTV installation of some kind surely.

Yeah I don't like the idea of anyone altering a sky box. Arent there fees if you dont return sky boxes? Could be better to just get your own device. Post here if you find out more details on what exactly this guy is selling.

The fees to return the box and only for the first 12months.

I seriously doubt it is a chipped box. More likely it is an Sat/Android box with a Sky skin on it running IPTV.