BT outbids Sky and ITV for Champions League

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northernseagull

northernseagull

Active member
Mar 12, 2013
676
BT today outbid Sky and ITV for Champions Leagues coverage in a deal worth £897million!

So the fans now have to fork out for an extra TV bundle (those of us who have sky sports) and then the elite clubs open the gap of income further by receiving a sizable slice of the money pie.

No more ITV coverage of Champions League is very sad. For those that can't get to a pub or haven't got the extra cash to splash on cable tv this narrows the audience and surely reduces the Champions League brand exposure in the UK.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/11/bt-wins-champions-league-rights-what-does-it-mean
 


















vegster

vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
28,273
And I wonder how they are going to get that £900M odd back ?
 












Iggle Piggle

Iggle Piggle

Well-known member
Sep 3, 2010
5,972
Summed up nicely in the Torygraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ovejoy-is-poster-boy-for-games-lost-soul.html

Tim Lovejoy had an announcement to make. “It’s a very exciting announcement,” he told the viewers of BT Sports Panel on Saturday morning. “This is really good for us. I think you’ll all like this.”

It was somehow fitting that Lovejoy was the presenter charged with officially revealing the news that BT  Sport had secured the rights to the Champions League.

Though it is almost two decades since he first rocked up on Soccer AM with his inimitable blend of puns and casual misogyny, Lovejoy has never quite shrugged off the blithe disingenuousness that defines the true footballing arriviste. An uncharitable sentiment, perhaps, but one that is likely to be lost on him.

“Get in there!” Matt Dawson cried. “That is fantastic. That’s big news.” Then, he added in a portentous tone, pointing at bemused studio guests Tim Henman and Jess Varnish: “You were here.” Jake Humphrey, BT’s assiduous young missionary, was also in the studio.

“It’s just huge, huge news,” he assured us. “For the first time, British fans who want to watch all the Champions League matches can tune into just one place. It’s good news for us, but really good news for football fans as well.”

Even in this cynical old business, certain acts of altruism simply must not be allowed to pass unheeded. So on behalf of the British people: thank you, BT. Never again will we labour under the intolerable burden of having to change channels to watch the match we want to see. And thanks to Matt Dawson, too, for recognising the gravity of the moment and expressing it so succinctly. The first time man walked on the moon. The first free elections in South Africa. And the first time a single UK broadcaster won exclusive rights to the Champions League.

If BT’s £900 million coup (and how insouciantly such big numbers are thrown around these days) is indeed a “game changer”, then it is worth wondering what the game in question actually is. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the tussle for football broadcasting rights has become a sport in its own right, with dominance of the UK broadband market as its trophy, to be celebrated with an open-top bus parade around the London Stock Exchange.

There is a certain temptation to frame the BT-Sky duel as a sort of blue-chip wrestling bout, rather than the more mundane spectacle of a very rich company attempting to become even richer. Certainly, this latest flourish bears the distinct whiff of machismo. Big business is intensely masculine in character, as is big sport. Combining the two creates a perfect storm of testosterone, a fearsome clanging of big-money testicles.

It also risks obscuring the bigger picture, which is that the BT deal banishes regular, live top-class football from terrestrial television, perhaps for good. A deep-seated affinity with Adrian Chiles is not necessary to recognise the inherent virtue in making football available to as many people as possible. The poor – a demographic that modern football has little time for in any case – will have to make do with whatever scraps BT sees fit to dangle before them. Football’s new beginning also feels like an end.

There is a wider issue at stake here, and it is the piecemeal commodification of our culture: a process that did not begin with BT  Sport, but by no means ends with it either. This is, after all, the week in which John Lewis unveiled its Christmas advert, a two-minute slice of microwaved schmaltz that everybody seems to have forgotten is part of a nakedly exploitative campaign to sell more overpriced crockery. And the week in which tennis came to the O2 with a steadfast determination to brand everything in sight, from Ricoh line challenges to Corona match highlights to Barclays ballboys.

In a way, Lovejoy is the perfect face for this new dawn. For many years he has been a tick on the body of football, nibbling his way into its bloodstream, occupying it so thoroughly and rapaciously that he has become the thing itself. Now he stands as a sort of Gazprom-flavoured isotope of the game: a relic of the game’s past that somehow also represents its bleak, bleak future.
 




L

leigull

New member
Sep 26, 2010
3,810
northernseagull said:
How in any way shape or form is this good???

The only people that lose out here are the fans...
Click to expand...

They still have to show a certain number of games free to air. Which will easily cover the one Champions League game a week ITV currently show, and we don't have to listen to Tyldesley, Chiles or Townsend. Sounds good to me.
 




kevo

kevo

Well-known member
Mar 8, 2008
9,809
Iggle Piggle said:
Summed up nicely in the Torygraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ovejoy-is-poster-boy-for-games-lost-soul.html

Tim Lovejoy had an announcement to make. “It’s a very exciting announcement,” he told the viewers of BT Sports Panel on Saturday morning. “This is really good for us. I think you’ll all like this.”

It was somehow fitting that Lovejoy was the presenter charged with officially revealing the news that BT  Sport had secured the rights to the Champions League.

Though it is almost two decades since he first rocked up on Soccer AM with his inimitable blend of puns and casual misogyny, Lovejoy has never quite shrugged off the blithe disingenuousness that defines the true footballing arriviste. An uncharitable sentiment, perhaps, but one that is likely to be lost on him.

“Get in there!” Matt Dawson cried. “That is fantastic. That’s big news.” Then, he added in a portentous tone, pointing at bemused studio guests Tim Henman and Jess Varnish: “You were here.” Jake Humphrey, BT’s assiduous young missionary, was also in the studio.

“It’s just huge, huge news,” he assured us. “For the first time, British fans who want to watch all the Champions League matches can tune into just one place. It’s good news for us, but really good news for football fans as well.”

Even in this cynical old business, certain acts of altruism simply must not be allowed to pass unheeded. So on behalf of the British people: thank you, BT. Never again will we labour under the intolerable burden of having to change channels to watch the match we want to see. And thanks to Matt Dawson, too, for recognising the gravity of the moment and expressing it so succinctly. The first time man walked on the moon. The first free elections in South Africa. And the first time a single UK broadcaster won exclusive rights to the Champions League.

If BT’s £900 million coup (and how insouciantly such big numbers are thrown around these days) is indeed a “game changer”, then it is worth wondering what the game in question actually is. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the tussle for football broadcasting rights has become a sport in its own right, with dominance of the UK broadband market as its trophy, to be celebrated with an open-top bus parade around the London Stock Exchange.

There is a certain temptation to frame the BT-Sky duel as a sort of blue-chip wrestling bout, rather than the more mundane spectacle of a very rich company attempting to become even richer. Certainly, this latest flourish bears the distinct whiff of machismo. Big business is intensely masculine in character, as is big sport. Combining the two creates a perfect storm of testosterone, a fearsome clanging of big-money testicles.

It also risks obscuring the bigger picture, which is that the BT deal banishes regular, live top-class football from terrestrial television, perhaps for good. A deep-seated affinity with Adrian Chiles is not necessary to recognise the inherent virtue in making football available to as many people as possible. The poor – a demographic that modern football has little time for in any case – will have to make do with whatever scraps BT sees fit to dangle before them. Football’s new beginning also feels like an end.

There is a wider issue at stake here, and it is the piecemeal commodification of our culture: a process that did not begin with BT  Sport, but by no means ends with it either. This is, after all, the week in which John Lewis unveiled its Christmas advert, a two-minute slice of microwaved schmaltz that everybody seems to have forgotten is part of a nakedly exploitative campaign to sell more overpriced crockery. And the week in which tennis came to the O2 with a steadfast determination to brand everything in sight, from Ricoh line challenges to Corona match highlights to Barclays ballboys.

In a way, Lovejoy is the perfect face for this new dawn. For many years he has been a tick on the body of football, nibbling his way into its bloodstream, occupying it so thoroughly and rapaciously that he has become the thing itself. Now he stands as a sort of Gazprom-flavoured isotope of the game: a relic of the game’s past that somehow also represents its bleak, bleak future.
Click to expand...

Was just going to post that! Great piece. In what possible way, BT, is this good news for the fans?
 




S

somerset

New member
Jul 14, 2003
6,600
Yatton, North Somerset
I find it amazing that Uefa didn't want sky having full exclusive rights to the CL in the first instance, forcing a split of games with ITV......but now its ok for BT to have the lot......laughable, how many BT shares have now found their way into Platini's portfolio I wonder?
 


Westdene Seagull

Westdene Seagull

aka Cap'n Carl Firecrotch
NSC Patron
Oct 27, 2003
21,529
The arse end of Hangleton
Am I the only one who couldn't give a toss until we get there ?
 




E

elninobonito

Whitehawk Born and Bred
May 27, 2011
652
BT Sport is included in the Virgin XL package and is free for at least 3 seasons, so it looks as though Virgin subscribers will get this free in its first year at least.
 




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