There seems to be no end to the tricks that owners of sports content will get up to grow their revenue.

Apparently in the EPL they put the season(s) up for sale but carved out a few packages which included the bank holiday weekends and the like.

For these packages the televisers including those who held no other part of the television rights could bid separately.

One package went to Amazon Prime .. so yes to get those games you need to subscribe (in Britain at least) to Amazon Prime. The rest of the season is covered by BT and Sky.

I think streaming is the future but deals like this show how easily the ultimate consumer will get screwed.

More facts on these developments in the Guardian article below:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/07/amazon-breaks-premier-league-hold-of-sky-and-bt-with-streaming-deal

23 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

There seems to be no end to the tricks that owners of sports content will get up to grow their revenue.

Apparently in the EPL they put the season(s) up for sale but carved out a few packages which included the bank holiday weekends and the like.

For these packages the televisers including those who held no other part of the television rights could bid separately.

One package went to Amazon Prime .. so yes to get those games you need to subscribe (in Britain at least) to Amazon Prime. The rest of the season is covered by BT and Sky.

I think streaming is the future but deals like this show how easily the ultimate consumer will get screwed.

More facts on these developments in the Guardian article below:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/07/amazon-breaks-premier-league-hold-of-sky-and-bt-with-streaming-deal

Free2Air is the communities friend, its our best bet.  Its hard to shut out people, on Free2Air.

1 hour ago, DV8 said:

Free2Air is the communities friend, its our best bet.  Its hard to shut out people, on Free2Air.

FTA is becoming increasingly frozen out. Just have a look at the recent cricket deal where the BBL a game almost "made" by Channel 10 is now behind a play wall.

As the article says it's not now just the battle between pay and FTA but it is the pay channels themselves carving up the content. In a way we are lucky that there is only Foxtel as the player in the pay TV space but you can be assured that just as Optus has gone after Champions League rights the streaming companies will not be far behind in Australia.

Ina few years the NBN will be fully rolled out and while it won't be what we hoped for in terms of speed it won't be bad.

Let's say the blockbusters were packaged as a separate bidding package.

You can be sure those at the AFL are doing the sums.

Edited June 7, 20186 yr by Diamond_Jim

2 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

There seems to be no end to the tricks that owners of sports content will get up to grow their revenue.

Apparently in the EPL they put the season(s) up for sale but carved out a few packages which included the bank holiday weekends and the like.

For these packages the televisers including those who held no other part of the television rights could bid separately.

One package went to Amazon Prime .. so yes to get those games you need to subscribe (in Britain at least) to Amazon Prime. The rest of the season is covered by BT and Sky.

I think streaming is the future but deals like this show how easily the ultimate consumer will get screwed.

More facts on these developments in the Guardian article below:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/07/amazon-breaks-premier-league-hold-of-sky-and-bt-with-streaming-deal

Streaming is the future and in many respects, the current. FOXTEL will be dead within a decade. It may exist as a streaming service only.

The ability for 'ambush television' (I like that term), to occur under the traditional broadcasters is just the same though. It really depends on where the dollars are and strategically, which way the code considers they can get the most dollars.

I would hope the AFL have learnt from their scheduling of multiple Carlton and St Kilda Friday night games that there is a very fine line between success and failure in this business. 

The fans are the most important people as they ultimately drive the advertising dollars, but if you [censored] them off, your code could well be [censored] for the term of the licence deal.

It won't be long until there is a dedicated sport streaming platform in Australia and when there is, the AFL would do well not to [censored] off their fans by doing any EPL-like deals.

1 hour ago, Diamond_Jim said:

FTA is becoming increasingly frozen out. Just have a look at the recent cricket deal where the BBL a game almost "made" by Channel 10 is not behind a play wall.

As the article says it's not now just the battle between pay and FTA but it is the pay channels themselves carving up the content. In a way we are lucky that there is only Foxtel as the player in the pay TV space but you can be assured that just as Optus has gone after Champions League rights the streaming companies will not be far behind in Australia.

Ina few years the NBN will be fully rolled out and while it won't be what we hoped for in terms of speed it won't be bad.

Let's say the blockbusters were packaged as a separate bidding package.

You can be sure those at the AFL are doing the sums.

And thank goodness for that. FTA everything is just plain terrible. Their sports coverage, their tv series'... urgh. The sooner the majority of them [censored] off, the better.

1 hour ago, Diamond_Jim said:

FTA is becoming increasingly frozen out. Just have a look at the recent cricket deal where the BBL a game almost "made" by Channel 10 is now behind a play wall.

As the article says it's not now just the battle between pay and FTA but it is the pay channels themselves carving up the content. In a way we are lucky that there is only Foxtel as the player in the pay TV space but you can be assured that just as Optus has gone after Champions League rights the streaming companies will not be far behind in Australia.

Ina few years the NBN will be fully rolled out and while it won't be what we hoped for in terms of speed it won't be bad.

Let's say the blockbusters were packaged as a separate bidding package.

You can be sure those at the AFL are doing the sums.

This;,,, is the whole problem 'money', has overtaken life.

So we won't go to the drive-ins, the theaters, the footy, the cricket, we just stay at home, and sit, and watch ???

 

... what in hell is this we are building, actually its not building;, it is destroying.

Money is the seat of evil.

And on a somewhat related note:::

The so-called “big six” Premier League clubs have won their persistent battle to be paid a greater share of the income from the league’s burgeoning international TV rights, which have for 26 years been shared equally between all the league’s clubs.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/07/premier-league-big-six-win-battle-overseas-television-rights

A closer read of the above article will reveal that it is not as simple as my quoted paragraph but it's a worrying trend.

Perhaps more worrying is this comment from the same article:

The change has been agreed at a time of more generally advancing financial ambitions of the major European clubs. Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of Juventus and the European Club Association, told the Guardian in a recent interview that he wanted to “reshape” European football by having more lucrative matches played in the Champions League from 2024. The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, also recently proposed a new 24-team format for the Club World Cup, featuring Europe’s biggest clubs, which would deliver $3bn for each four-yearly tournament. That proposal has been shelved.

And I thought following the A League was hard enough ?

If Amazon takes over the AFL, and the campaign to scrap the centre-bounce eventually succeeds, I hope they replace it with an Amazon drone dropping the ball into the contests. That would be awesome. 

4 hours ago, A F said:

Streaming is the future and in many respects, the current. FOXTEL will be dead within a decade. It may exist as a streaming service only.

You say that like the LNP didn't just prevent most parts of Australia from connecting their home to a fibre network and making it vastly expensive for a future encumbent to replace all of the fibre to the node copper networks that have everybody complaining that their nbn connection is currently worse than adsl.

Edited June 7, 20186 yr by John Demonic

1 hour ago, John Demonic said:

You say that like the LNP didn't just prevent most parts of Australia from connecting their home to a fibre network and making it vastly expensive for a future encumbent to replace all of the fibre to the node copper networks that have everybody complaining that their nbn connection is currently worse than adsl.

Exactly

(disc on a regional 50/20 LTE that is going to 100/40 soon)

It must be a very fine line between maximising revenue on the one hand and maximising exposure on the other. Personally, I don't think either the AFL or Cricket Australia has the balance right at the moment with too much of the product hidden behind paywalls. 

3 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

It must be a very fine line between maximising revenue on the one hand and maximising exposure on the other. Personally, I don't think either the AFL or Cricket Australia has the balance right at the moment with too much of the product hidden behind paywalls. 

It will get worse,

Foxtel at present pays the lions share of the TV rights money but gets the lesser games on an exclusive basis. If they want to increase their ailing market they will pressure the FTA co-bidder for more exclusivity on the bigger games.

NBN for all its faults will eventually settle down and 5G which comes at the end of the year has speeds most of us could only dream about.

4 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

It will get worse,

Foxtel at present pays the lions share of the TV rights money but gets the lesser games on an exclusive basis. If they want to increase their ailing market they will pressure the FTA co-bidder for more exclusivity on the bigger games.

NBN for all its faults will eventually settle down and 5G which comes at the end of the year has speeds most of us could only dream about.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a switch - more games on free to air but of lesser quality, with fewer, but better* games behind the paywall. *For this purpose, "better" means games with anticipated higher ratings, which, as we know is not entirely linked to the perceived quality of the game. 

19 hours ago, John Demonic said:

You say that like the LNP didn't just prevent most parts of Australia from connecting their home to a fibre network and making it vastly expensive for a future encumbent to replace all of the fibre to the node copper networks that have everybody complaining that their nbn connection is currently worse than adsl.

This was a terrible decision in 2013 when he was Communications Minister and it has become an even worse decision with time, given its cost us bloated out even further than the ALP's superior NBN plan at the time.

Either way, wireless will bring us into the 21st century soon enough and companies like Telstra, who were handed tax-funded infrastructure by the LNP, will cease to exist without a monopoly on the infrastructure.  

Do not privatise intrinsic public services. Telstra and Australia Post are two of the worst companies in the country. Their service is dreadful and it's mostly based on the fact that they cut costs because they know they have the market tied up.

When wireless comes in, I will guarantee you now, there will be an Australian sports streaming provider.

46 minutes ago, A F said:

 

Either way, wireless will bring us into the 21st century soon enough and companies like Telstra, who were handed tax-funded infrastructure by the LNP, will cease to exist without a monopoly on the infrastructure. 

Good point AF but 5G requires spectrum (government auction) and distribution networks (towers, mini towers etc). Big investment.

Can't see too many corporations save for Telstra stumping up the cash.

Optus owned by the Singapore Govt wealth fund could do it.

Either way they'll be forced to onsell access to other participants as they do now at a government approved price.

Interesting because I think Telstra is well and truly setting itself up to kill the NBN by its use of 5G. What's to stop them rolling out 5G to the main metro areas and leaving the less lucrative areas to the NBN.

Not a bad outcome considering the price NBN paid Telstra for its copper network.

Surprising that there has not been more business analysis of the various scenarios as they are fundamental to the internet of things that we keep hearing about.