Bang wrote:
No doubt the huge streaming companies are going to get rights for PL + CL football sooner rather than later. Where does that leave Sky/BT? And more importantly - where does that leave RL?
Would Sky pump more money into the game? Try and make it grow into a much better product?
Would BT make a bid for RL to try + do the same?
Amazon already have a rights deal with the Premier League from next season, with two rounds of ten matches over bank holiday weekends and it has held rights for Thursday night NFL games and WTA tennis. Netflix doesn't seem overly interested in sport, instead building its business around original content.
Personally I wouldn't bet the farm on a big-money offer from Amazon just yet. They're clearly testing the water with sports rights and I suspect they are a pretty major loss-leader to drive subscriptions for Prime. If that is their aim, then what they need is mass appeal - not content that has limited regional appeal. The rights that they have bought also come with relatively low production costs - they have largely just been simulasting existing TV feeds, rather than doing their own OB and presenting.