BT Sport wins £1bn Champions League TV rights off Sky and ITV • Exclusive three-year contract is to run from 2015 • Sky feels BT paid far in excess of its own valuation British sports fans have always loved an underdog. Little Wigans victory against the might of Manchester City in last years FA Cup final was the most popular triumph for years. Now the prohibitively expensive world of football broadcasting has witnessed its own giant-killing act. BT, the new kid on the block, has scored a major coup in its multi-billion-pound sports broadcasting battle with Rupert Murdochs Sky, after agreeing a dramatic £900m deal for exclusive live rights to European footballs blue-riband club competition from 2015-16. The deal, perhaps the most significant since Sky transformed its business 21 years ago by buying the exclusive rights to domestic top-flight football, will see BT pay Uefa £299m a season for three years for 350 exclusive live matches in the Champions League and its sister tournament, the Europa League. At a stroke, it gives BT ownership of some of the most prestigious and eagerly-anticipated moments of the football season and ends Skys dominance of a sport which has been crucial to its broader appeal. The deal is the most dramatic twist yet in a bitter battle that began when BT paid £738m for 38 live Premier League matches a season and signed up presenters including Jake Humphrey and Clare Balding to broadcast from new studios on the Olympic Park, as part of a £1.5bn foray into sports broadcasting. The move was designed to transform its image from a staid phone company to a 21st century multi-media business. The existing Champions League deal, under which Sky and ITV share the rights, is worth just £400m. The huge increase is good news for clubs, players and agents, but it remains to be seen whether it will represent good value for fans. As part of the negotiations, Uefa insisted that some matches, including both finals, were shown free to air in order to preserve the value of its sponsorship deals and ensure they could be seen by a wider audience. But there could still be a backlash from fans angry at more matches disappearing from free-to-air television – under the current deal one game in every round of Champions League matches is shown on ITV, as well as some Europa League games. BT promised that every participating British team would be shown free at least once per season to non-subscribers. The deal will also set the scene for a titanic struggle in the next set of Premier League rights from 2016-17, in which BT will have to weigh up whether to go head to head with Sky for a greater share of matches. Under the current deal, Sky shows 116 live games a season to BTs 38. BT said subscribing to its coverage of the Champions League and Europa League would be more accessible and affordable than the cost of paying for Sky Sports, which currently has the rights to all but one live Champions League match in each round of games. By centralising all the Champions League and Europa League matches in one place, it will also open up new possibilities for broadband and interactive services based around its programming. The exclusive deal will spell the end for live European club football on BBC or ITV but BTs commitment to free to air matches over satellite, cable and broadband is likely quell some of the criticism from fans. ITV could yet pick up a highlights package. Gavin Patterson, the recently appointed BT chief executive who oversaw the launch of BT Sport in his previous role as head of the retail division, said he was thrilled. Both tournaments are world class and firm favourites with many. The live rights will give a major boost to BT Sport and give people yet another reason to take our terrific service, he said. BT Sport has got off to a strong start with customers enjoying what we have to offer. We have attracted millions of customers by giving sport back to the fans, and we can assure people who want to catch all the action, that European football will be far more accessible and affordable with BT. Sky will argue that it forced BT to overpay for the rights, but it will be galling for the Osterley-based broadcaster to be outgunned with the sort of dramatic intervention it has specialised in over the years. We bid with a clear view of what the rights are worth to us. It seems BT to pay far in excess of our valuation, said a Sky spokesman. We take a disciplined approach and there is always a level at which we will choose to focus on something else. If we thought it was worth more, wed have paid more. Since dramatically announcing its arrival in the market with its £738m deal for Premier League games, BT Sport has also announced a joint deal with the BBC for live FA Cup coverage and invested in a new studio on the Olympic Park in east London. It has also signed an exclusive deal for Premiership club rugby and is awaiting the outcome of a bitter battle over the future of the European club competition, which it hopes will result in a new breakaway competition from next season. John Petter, the chief executive of BT Retail, said that the deal proved BT Sport was here to stay and rejected Skys suggestion that it had massively overpaid for the rights. They would say that wouldnt they. Secretly Id expect them to be kicking themselves and full of regrets this morning, said Petter. Sport on TV BT Sport Champions League Europa League Sky Sports BSkyB Television industry ITV Owen Gibson theguardian © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More news on: ift.tt/nYbTwk
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 13:43:45 +0000
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