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Just thinking aloud here. Looking at the potential businesses interested, more likely than not, a full purchase of BT Sport would be the logical option. Amazon/Disney/DAZN would surely want the rights on their streaming services and not shared with BT?
Can't help but think that this would be a good move for ITV, if they are indeed the in lead as has been reported. Assuming it's a full sale and not just a stake in the business, when looking at the BT Sport app, all the features that are on offer on there could be integrated into ITV Hub, perhaps increase the cost of Hub+ in turn. The price to watch sport has been a hot topic over the pandemic, offering more 'live and free on ITV' surely would be good for advertising revenue. Just depends if their reputation after the collapse of ITV Digital has gone away, would people want to pay for an ITV Sport subscription? They wouldn't necessarily have to keep the current studios at Queen Elizabeth Park either.
Will be interesting to see how this unfolds. If DAZN does win/become stakeholder, it would be another OTT subscription service to pay for in the UK that might not necessarily be bundled into packages with Sky/Virgin.
ITV would be an interesting suitor. Whilst the ITV Sport/Digital debacle was regrettable, the difference this time round is they'll have more A-List football matches, the Rugby Premiership, WWE... not to mention the possiblity of showing select footy games on ITV itself - I'm sure they'd relish the chance to show Champions League matches FTA again. Possibly even some European Rugby action? You'd probably draw a decent audience for something like Saracens v. Tolouse.
Of course, if you took this one step further there's always the possiblity of ITV acquiring the telephony TV side of things and ressurecting ITV Digital as a DTT/IP hybrid system. That could be very interesting.
James Martin post_id=10139 time=1619897523 user_id=872 Wrote:ITV would be an interesting suitor. Whilst the ITV Sport/Digital debacle was regrettable, the difference this time round is they'll have more A-List football matches, the Rugby Premiership, WWE... not to mention the possiblity of showing select footy games on ITV itself - I'm sure they'd relish the chance to show Champions League matches FTA again. Possibly even some European Rugby action? You'd probably draw a decent audience for something like Saracens v. Tolouse.
Of course, if you took this one step further there's always the possiblity of ITV acquiring the telephony TV side of things and ressurecting ITV Digital as a DTT/IP hybrid system. That could be very interesting.
This obviously won’t happen and people are getting way too ahead of themselves here.
It’s worth noting that BT Sport currently operates at a loss, and whilst BT Group as a whole have used it as a loss-leader for their consumer division (and not expecting Sport itself to turn a profit), that does mean that somebody else taking it over who does not have a platform to exploit would find it very hard to make money on, I would suggest.
The big game changer in 2012 when BT won the PL rights was that finally the ‘not-Sky’ PL broadcaster had their own telephony/broadband/TV platform to play with and the BT Sport offering fitted within this, rather than as a standalone business.
Now, for BT, maybe the game is a bit different (as was suggested in the FT) and they now want to go about the consumer division in a different way, not least as Sky are now being a lot less gung-ho in the broadband market. So I’m not suggesting that they wouldn’t look to operate BT Sport differently, but I do think that they’d be more likely to sell a stake in the division rather than the whole thing.
We’ve seen from Eleven Sports how it can be very hard for an OTT service to penetrate without the platform.
It appears that UEFA's template for the Women's Champions League don't include an aggregate score, so BT have had to improvise.
![[Image: uwcl.jpg]](https://up.metropol247.co.uk/thegeek/uwcl.jpg)
Why is the main scoreboard so far down the screen?
It's so long too so it's not like they didn't have room. Usually UEFA graphics are quite concise.
Brekkie post_id=10330 time=1619993253 user_id=976 Wrote:It's so long too so it's not like they didn't have room. Usually UEFA graphics are quite concise.
Some broadcasters have used full team names (e.g. Barcelona not BAR) on the graphics this season which could explain the large graphics.
The reverse legs' scoreboard was in an even more odd position:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GbIauB8jbk
paul_hadley post_id=10329 time=1619992106 user_id=905 Wrote:Why is the main scoreboard so far down the screen?
it's UEFA's template - I think the old Europa League scorebar was in that position too. (Note the bespoke channel bug location to match it).
Getting into some real minutiae here - the other semi-final was captioned on the host broadcaster's graphics as "Barcelona v París Saint-Germain" - I think it's only the Spanish who put an accent on the I of Paris, so it looked a wee bit jarring.
BT is due to release it's annual results tomorrow morning at 0700. More news may be forthcoming then, inevitably at the analysts presentation at 0900 the subject will be covered in the concluding questions session if not during the executive reporting part of the session.
News UK becoming interested and then rapidly not being interested any more suggests that BT have at least one offer they are trying to better.
This Telegraph article says that is strong interest from DAZN:
Quote:Discussions with News UK are at an early stage and may not lead to an agreement, sources said. Mr Murdoch, who turned 90 in March, faces opposition from the likes of Dazn, an international sports streaming business bankrolled by the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik.
Sources close to the talks suggested Dazn, which has already sealed a comparable sports broadcasting partnership with Telecom Italia, has so far shown the greatest appetite to secure a deal quickly.
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