BT Sport

[Hatton Cross]

DAZN is becoming a rapidly growing force in sports streaming, so it's obvious that they would be interested.

Mouth dries in terror. :ugeek: :

Problem is, with the news that the next three year rights cycle won't happen and a rubber stamped renewal hovering on the horizon (which not entering into a battle and getting 3 more seasons of Premier League football makes the BT boards decision slightly strange) and locking out any new chancers to the table.

So, buying a stake, either part on in whole, of BT Sport must be music to DAZN's large flabbly lugholes.
Suppose if it does happen, we'll see how the Sky EPG handles the exceptionally large number of capital letters in 'DAZN BT SPORT ESPN'

[Brekkie]

ITV is no riskier than DAZN entering the market. However I don't think it is a move that they or Amazon would make given recent purchasing history.

How big a stake is up for sale?

[RegularCapital]

ITV is no riskier than DAZN entering the market. However I don't think it is a move that they or Amazon would make given recent purchasing history.

How big a stake is up for sale?

It's not known at the moment, BT are just reviewing their options.

[JetixFann450]

Personally, I can see Disney taking ownership for BT Sport. For one, they already do operate a channel under licence of the ESPN name and two, would allow Disney to relaunch the ESPN brand in a bouquet of channels similar to their US counterpart. Plus, it would allow them to launch ESPN+ and allow for more coverage of the sports BT already do offer, but for those who likely don't have Sky or BT.

[Jon]

I can’t see that outright owning BT Sport would be more profitable to a broadcaster only, rather than a telecoms company. I could see BT being quite happy with ITV taking a large stake and rebranding it ITV Sport with BT continuing to offer it in its broadband packages.

I would imagine BBC Studios wouldn’t be allowed to get involved?

[Hatton Cross]

How about Discovery Networks, coming in for a chunk of the operation - they wouldn't even have to change the names that much..
BT Eurosport.

[bfgarmy]

Interesting news and I could it being quite attractive for a streaming company (whether existing like Amazon and Disney or a new entrant like DAZN) to outright acquire the sport operation.
BT Sport despite downscaling over the years still has a very decent sport portfolio - the club rugby, Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, Bundesliga,Ligue 1 and WWE rights means you have several hours each week of new content and live output. That sort of thing for a streaming platform is very useful and means less risk of viewers 'running out of things to watch'. Indeed WWE recently in America got $1 billion over 5 years from NBC to move their streaming content and special events from WWE's own streaming platform to NBC's streaming platform Peacock.

Though the story at the minute with BT does seem vague so there's no guarantee it will be an outright sale and instead may be just somebody buying a stake in it and the existing BT Sport brand remaining.

[bkman1990]

From the article; it is reporting that traditional broadcasters like ITV, Channel 4, the BBC or maybe Channel 5 (not noted in the article) could be eyed as potential buyer of this new stake in BT Sport. But there are a few pros & cons with this idea. Channel 4 is most likely to be out of the running in this deal because they are currently have a multi year content deal inked with Sky including simulcasting some of their live Cricket coverage & having Channel 4 to provide additional F1 highlights shows & live coverage of the British GP during the F1 race calendar.

ITV is more interesting here because they have had a history of broadcasting CL/EL football in the UK on ITV/ITV4 before BT grabbed all of the remaining rights to be used on their BT TV platform & by also having the games shown exclusively via Sky/VM. However in an interesting caveat; ITV did recently nab the remainder of BT Sport's FA Cup rights which is due to be broadcast along with the BBC from later this year. Whether ITV would be interested in taking on a partial stake in BT would be something to consider for them given that they have improved their sports coverage over the past few years. However; it is up to ITV to say that they are interested in taking up a stake in BT if they can afford it because we don't how much of a stake is being offered for BT Sport at the moment given the talks are reported to be confidential.

Now Channel 5 could be another option as well because they are owned by Viacom which is a US media giant owning channels like Nickelodeon & MTV. Channel 5 do have a record in simulcasting some of BT's Gallagher Premiership rugby match coverage in the UK before. Although they have never broadcasted top flight football coverage before. I do remember that they did have football coverage before but was that coverage from the EFL? I remember Channel 5 having highlights coverage of MotoGP before it went to Quest & now ITV4 for FTA coverage as the current pay TV rights of that competition in the UK are still with BT Sport?

I don't think the BBC will be allowed to take on a stake in BT Sport given they have licence fee constraints in the UK. They could give some money to BT by broadcasting some of BT's Premier League games if it was on the BBC's agenda for broadcasting additional PL games along with their current PL rights deal.

[Brekkie]

If they sold it completely would they have to honour any contracts where BT Sport is included as part of being locked in to a 18/24 month contract, even if it rebrands?

[Steve Williams]

If they sold it completely would they have to honour any contracts where BT Sport is included as part of being locked in to a 18/24 month contract, even if it rebrands?

I don't see this being an issue, Sky was taken over in 2018 and that didn't affect any of their contracts at all.

There was an example of this anyway when BT took over ESPN, it kept hold of all their contracts. Indeed even if it is sold completely that wouldn't mean the end of BT Sport, they could still licence the name, much like we still have ESPN but owned and operated by BT under licence, and all the stuff that has Virgin branding but isn't run by Virgin themselves, like Virgin Media isn't.

[XIII]

I cannot see ViacomCBS buying a stake in BT Sport personally as they seemed to be focused on expanding Paramount Plus.

[Brekkie]

If they sold it completely would they have to honour any contracts where BT Sport is included as part of being locked in to a 18/24 month contract, even if it rebrands?

I don't see this being an issue, Sky was taken over in 2018 and that didn't affect any of their contracts at all.

Sky was sold as a whole though. Here you potentially have BT Sport being a new entity separate from BT Broadband, although arrangements may be made that BT continue selling it.

Any news on BT TV too - surely there isn't much value in that and they basically only sell it as it is an avenue to sell BT Sport. All the Sky channels have now been effectively separated from it with BT being a reseller for Now TV instead.

[thegeek]

TVBEurope reporting that the Telegraph are reporting that ITV have expressed an interest in taking a stake: https://www.tvbeurope.com/business/itv-l...port-stake

[Brekkie]

Interesting they spin it as a way for ITV to get the Champions League back free to air. TBH no better way of promoting all Champions League games are available for a monthly fee than airing some game free to air. It does feel less and less relevant nowadays thanks to no FTA presence - two semi-finals both featuring English teams went somewhat unnoticed this week.

[Rdd]

That is effectively what Virgin Media TV have been doing in Ireland over the last three years - using the one FTA game each week to promote the sports channel having the rest of the games. (Since news leaked out about two months ago that they are out of contention for the 21-24 cycle, all promotion of the sports channel has effectively stopped and most non-clashing games have aired FTA).