SKY sign exclusive Football League deal from 2012/13, BBC lose out

[clippedgull]

More free to air live football lost.



The Football League has signed a three-year deal with Sky Sports, giving the broadcaster exclusive rights to show live matches from the 2012-13 season.

The deal, worth £195m, marks a drop from the current £264m agreement with Sky and the BBC.

Football League chairman Greg Clarke said it had been a challenging climate to negotiate in.

The BBC said that it had been unable to make a competitive bid for live broadcast rights.

Under the new agreement, Sky Sports will broadcast 75 matches from across the Npower Football League, the play-offs including all three finals, 15 matches from the Carling Cup including both legs of each semi-final and the final, the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy and at least two matches from the preceding rounds.

Sky will also show match highlights.

The Football League said it was in ongoing discussions with broadcasters regarding free-to-air highlights.

'Lack of competition'
The BBC currently has first pick to show 10 live Championship matches a season, as well as two legs of the semi-finals and shared live coverage of the Carling Cup Final.

But a spokesman said: "Given the current financial climate and the internal strategic review being carried out through Delivering Quality First, we were not in a position to be able to make a competitive bid for the Football League live TV broadcast rights.

"We look forward to continuing our coverage of the Football League to the end of the 2011-2012 season when our contract expires."

League chairman Mr Clarke said: "This has been a challenging climate in which to negotiate television rights, given the state of the economy and the lack of competitive tension in the sports broadcasting market.

"I am confident that our clubs will take heart from seeing such a significant ongoing investment in their competitions, despite a reduced level of broadcasting income, as it provides financial certainty in uncertain times.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

sky cant be that far off having a monopoly on this now?

not sure if this is good for the game in the long run

 

[Biscuit]

I imagine I will watch a dodgy feed online or just go to the pub so hopefully it won't change things radically for me!

 

[Superphil]

Cos the BBC is free? Or is it £12 a month? And in addition, the coverage will be 100% better than anything BBC or ITV do.

 

[Bigtomfu]

Very frustrating.

As irritating as 'The Football League Show' can be at times, its a godsend to know it's always on post MOTD.

However, given that we're hopefully sailing on the good ship Championship from next season the bigger games would always have been on Sky.

 

[Arthur]

Hardly much of a loss is it! 10 games and awful coverage.

What will be more of a loss (I assume?) will be not being able to watch the goals on the beeb website on a Monday morning.

 

[maidstoneseagull]

There is still a highlight package to be won for terrestial....

 

[severnside gull]

Very frustrating.

As irritating as 'The Football League Show' can be at times, its a godsend to know it's always on post MOTD.

still could be................there is still the free-to-air deal to be done which is essentially a highlights package

 

[Rugrat]

Hardly much of a loss is it!

The loss is the £70M that's been pulled out I think. Given the way it's divied up I reckon more than 50% will be to championship clubs so likely loss to Albion of well over £1M and that's income that had no cost attached to it unlike say 2500 season tickets (staff, stadium upkeep etc)

 

[clippedgull]

Cos the BBC is free? Or is it £12 a month? And in addition, the coverage will be 100% better than anything BBC or ITV do.

Fair point. Although the licence fee covers all BBC output, whereas, to watch live football on SKY you have to pay a premium on top of the basic.

I notice the package has gone down in value by tens of millions, which will undoubtedly make its way to the Premier League clubs in the next big sign up.

 

[mcshane in the 79th]

Interesting that the BBC or ESPN didn't even try to bid for the rights, hence the 25% drop in Sky's winning offer.

A bit less money for Bloom and Poyet to spend now

£195 million for the Football League, £1.5 billion or something like that for the Premier League. Hmmm....

 

[Publius Ovidius]

i read somewhere that sky do not subscribe to a pricing mechanism.....i wonder what the reaction would be if they suddenly upped the price to say £100 a month for sky sports?

After all, they bumped up the prices to pubs by a huge amount

 

[Easy 10]

Not quite so bothered about them losing the 10 Live games a season from the FL as I rarely watched those anyway, but they'd better still have those free-to-air highlights. The coverage on the BBC website for the goal roundups is excellent, and whilst the FL Show has its faults and irritations, I still watch it almost every week, more so than MOTD anyway.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

£195M spread over 3 years is better than nothing at all , with the BBC having to drastically reduce its budget losing the deal is a godsend.

 

[Simster]

Hardly much of a loss is it! 10 games and awful coverage.

What will be more of a loss (I assume?) will be not being able to watch the goals on the beeb website on a Monday morning.

Of the ten league games + two league cup semis, I have watched no more than 2 or 3 games, but I did watch the FL show after MoTD maybe once every three weeks. However, I consider it a significant loss because I'd rather have the option to watch these programmes than have them taken off air completely.

But as you point out, the biggest loss will be the lack of internet coverage. I'm always on the BBC site to watch the goals.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

still could be................there is still the free-to-air deal to be done which is essentially a highlights package

The FTA deal won't be able to show highlights until Sky have shown their own highlights package. Expect to see highlights of Saturday games on either BBC , ITV , C4 or channel 5 late on a Tuesday evening.

 

[beorhthelm]

im not sure im remotly bothered by losing the 10 games on BBC, think i've only watch one this season.

the free-to-air is more important, just hope it goes to BBC no ITV, mainly because ITV will mean shorter pieces as they cram in ads.

 

[Superphil]

The FTA deal won't be able to show highlights until Sky have shown their own highlights package. Expect to see highlights of Saturday games on either BBC , ITV , C4 or channel 5 late on a Tuesday evening.

Do you know this, or is it a reasoned guess? Would be a shame if they make it that long of a wait.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Not quite so bothered about them losing the 10 Live games a season from the FL as I rarely watched those anyway, but they'd better still have those free-to-air highlights. The coverage on the BBC website for the goal roundups is excellent, and whilst the FL Show has its faults and irritations, I still watch it almost every week, more so than MOTD anyway.

I agree with this, being able to catch up on all the FL action via the BBC website kills many dull working hours. Hopefully that will continue. Not to fussed about live games, only tend to make a point of watching us if we are live and I can't make the match. That won't be an issue next season for me for home games anyway as I'll be there.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Do you know this, or is it a reasoned guess? Would be a shame if they make it that long of a wait.

It is a reasonable guess , Sky wont want to lose viewers to another channel showing a free highlights package which is shown at the same time as their highlights programme.