RugbyRebels

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BT have been turned down, having offered to extend on the current terms (£40M p.a.).

I hope to the gods that means that Amazon have offered more (or a terrestrial channel has offered broadly similar); not that CVC have become too greedy in the present environment, and cut their nose off to spite their face / shifting us to pay-per-view.

F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

There's been rumours of Amazon being interested, let's hope they're true.

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

Numbers wrote:

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Numbers wrote:

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

And quality of experience for me too. Live pause etc, record and navigate etc.

Epaminondas Pules wrote:

Puja wrote:

Numbers wrote:
I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

And quality of experience for me too. Live pause etc, record and navigate etc.

Indeed. You wouldn't ever be getting another minute-by-minute from me if the internationals went to Amazon - their rewind and fast forward is far too cumbersome. So there's an advantage for everybody else!

Puja

Where do I sign?

Puja wrote:

Numbers wrote:

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

Same here. I literally have BT Sport for rugby so if it goes on Prime, I’ll definitely be making a saving.

Puja wrote:

Epaminondas Pules wrote:

Puja wrote:
I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

And quality of experience for me too. Live pause etc, record and navigate etc.

Indeed. You wouldn't ever be getting another minute-by-minute from me if the internationals went to Amazon - their rewind and fast forward is far too cumbersome. So there's an advantage for everybody else!

Puja

Ain't it just. As much as I hate Murdoch Sky have absolutely nailed user experience and BT aren't too far behind. Amazon are miles away, but then they've only recently moved into live action. It is cumbersome as fuck though.

Won’t make any difference for me. Neither are available legally for me. Crazy.

Scrumhead wrote:

Puja wrote:

Numbers wrote:
I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

Same here. I literally have BT Sport for rugby so if it goes on Prime, I’ll definitely be making a saving.

I have BT Sport on Sky which is a ridiculous price. I have to send them a pint of blood and one of my children every month

I'd save a few quid if the games were shown on Amazon. I've no interest in the other sport BT air.

Are PRL awash with offers, though?

As long as Amazon save games so you can go back and catch up if you can't watch live, then I wouldn't be too disappointed if they got it. If not, bring unable to record will be a PITA.

Puja wrote:

Numbers wrote:

Puja wrote:F*cksake. This is going to end up with them crawling back to BT and accepting half the money, isn't it?

There's going to be a recession, clubs are already in dire financial straits, rugby is in an unentertaining mode right now, every other sporting TV rights deal apart from football has gone down - what makes them think that they'll be able to get an improved offer other than really really wanting it?

Puja

I wouldn't worry, Amazon are all over this and Amazon Prime Video is cheaper than BT Sport, win, win.

I wish I had your confidence!

Mind, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for me. I already have Prime and BT Sport is awfully expensive for all the football that I will never want to watch. My only concern is for the quality of the coverage.

Puja

They're moving into sport in a big way, I agree the coverage isn't as good during the match but hopefully they'll stop using the experimental camera angles, they also have more money than sense, the six nations will be on there before too long.

Have you seen the Pacific Warriors documentary on Prime? It's great.

Adam_P wrote:As long as Amazon save games so you can go back and catch up if you can't watch live, then I wouldn't be too disappointed if they got it. If not, bring unable to record will be a PITA.

The games are available after being shown live, I'm not sure for how long mind you.

They may still be available on the prem site.

Didn’t BT get the rights to the Prem before they even had a channel?

Money is virtually no object for Amazon, so you’d hope they would get it right if they do sign a long term agreement.

Timbo wrote:Didn’t BT get the rights to the Prem before they even had a channel?

Money is virtually no object for Amazon, so you’d hope they would get it right if they do sign a long term agreement.

BT bought up ESPN lock-stock and basically rebranded it, if memory serves.

I don't see how Amazon would be turning a profit from having the rugby rights though. A one-off like the Autumn Nations Cup is something I get - it's a November loss-leader that gets people to sign up for the 1 month free trial and then they keep it on because of Christmas shopping (and thus do all of that through Amazon). However, £7.99 per month is awfully cheap to be free shipping and a Netflix competitor and a Spotify competitor AND a sports channel. Are there really going to be £40m worth of people signing up for or retaining Prime because they've got the Premiership (let alone the broadcast and production costs)? I'd be surprised.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Timbo wrote:Didn’t BT get the rights to the Prem before they even had a channel?

Money is virtually no object for Amazon, so you’d hope they would get it right if they do sign a long term agreement.

BT bought up ESPN lock-stock and basically rebranded it, if memory serves.

I don't see how Amazon would be turning a profit from having the rugby rights though. A one-off like the Autumn Nations Cup is something I get - it's a November loss-leader that gets people to sign up for the 1 month free trial and then they keep it on because of Christmas shopping (and thus do all of that through Amazon). However, £7.99 per month is awfully cheap to be free shipping and a Netflix competitor and a Spotify competitor AND a sports channel. Are there really going to be £40m worth of people signing up for or retaining Prime because they've got the Premiership (let alone the broadcast and production costs)? I'd be surprised.

Puja

They may start a sport channel on the website which could incur an additional cost, like the other channels you can pay for.

Numbers wrote:

Puja wrote:

Timbo wrote:Didn’t BT get the rights to the Prem before they even had a channel?

Money is virtually no object for Amazon, so you’d hope they would get it right if they do sign a long term agreement.

BT bought up ESPN lock-stock and basically rebranded it, if memory serves.

I don't see how Amazon would be turning a profit from having the rugby rights though. A one-off like the Autumn Nations Cup is something I get - it's a November loss-leader that gets people to sign up for the 1 month free trial and then they keep it on because of Christmas shopping (and thus do all of that through Amazon). However, £7.99 per month is awfully cheap to be free shipping and a Netflix competitor and a Spotify competitor AND a sports channel. Are there really going to be £40m worth of people signing up for or retaining Prime because they've got the Premiership (let alone the broadcast and production costs)? I'd be surprised.

Puja

They may start a sport channel on the website which could incur an additional cost, like the other channels you can pay for.

Well, sure! If you want to bring logic into it.

Puja

Ultimately, if you want to aggressively pursue the idea of having a sports portfolio then you’ll need to outbid your competitors when the sports you want are up for tender.

I’m sure Amazon will have an end goal in mind that is profitable, but losing cash in the short term is probably not a deal breaker for them.

It doesn't have to be making a profit though.
It would just be one part of a much larger bundle.

In the early stages of a lot of streaming stuff it tends to be more controlling the market share v profit.
No other streaming service provides sport in a way amazon prime does currently.
It's only a matter of time now IMO before it does.
They would get 132 games of content for £40 million.
They spent £10 million a year for the ATP world tour.
They spent around $65 million on the NFL Thursday night football games (11 games in total)
£90 million for 20 premier league games

Amazon are very much targeting the sports side of things. Potentially in the long term it might well be looking at creating Amazon Sport, and run a similar model as it does for it's music.
Say Prime members get a limited amount of games for free, and a separate subscription for example another £7.99 a month for Prime users to get them full access.

Amazon would likely pay a premium for advertising during the games anyway, so all that advertising cost would be suddenly free.

Everything they do is around advertising their core product and they do it aggressively.

Daily Telegraph reporting that PRL and BT Sport are close to a deal. £37m a year, which is an uplift on the previous deal, but would actually be a drop of about 500k a year per club once CVC take their cut. But given wage cuts, the government bailout and the uncertainty around COVID its probably a fairly decent deal overall.