Sky seizes English Premier League rights back from Spark

The see-saw battle for the world’s most-viewed sporting competition has again tipped toward Sky TV.

Sky says it has secured rights to the English Premier League for six years from the 2022/23 season – which will begin this August.

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• $56m windfall for Sky TV

The pay-TV broadcaster says it will show all 380 games per season live and on-demand on its sports channels and Sky Sport Now.

Spark – which already faced questions from wealth manager Jarden about its commitment to sport – will now have to lean heavily on its domestic cricket rights.

End of paying twice?

The EPL will join Sky’s existing football lineup, which includes the Wellington Phoenix and the A-League, FA Cup and FIFA World Cup games.

“Those of our Sky Sport customers who are fanatical football fans have had to purchase a second service to watch the Premier League in recent years, and it’s great to now be able to offer them the Premier League as part of their wide range of sport and entertainment viewing options on Sky,” Sky chief executive Sophie Moloney said.

Some English and European football fans will still feel the need to shell out for a Spark Sport sub, however. The telco’s streaming service still has rights to Uefa’s Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.

Deal will have run to 10s of millions

Sky’s new EPL deal was on undisclosed terms and negotiated directly with the English Premier League. BeinSport – Sky’s partner when it last had EPL rights between 2016 and 2019 – was out of the frame this time.

Streaming English football first came to NZ in 2013 via PremierLeaguePass, launched in 2013 and bankrolled by rich lister Peter Cooper. It partnered with Spark toward the end of its three-year rights period before it was outbid BeinSport, which partnered with Sky, for the 2016-19 cycle.

A PremierLeaguePass isider estimted Bein paid $10m for 2016 to 2019 rights.

It’s likely the price has head sharply north since. The Premier league just jacked up its prize money to £176m for the winning 2021/22 team (from £153m last year. The 20th-placed team will still pocket an eye-watering £106m.

The UK government forced the EPL to rollover its current domestic rights deal. The league said the increases were fuelled by new overseas rights deals – including US broadcaster NBC, which AP reports tripled its payments to US$2.7b to secure a new six-year deal.

The Premier League is the most viewed league, attracting a global cumulative audience of 3.2 billion viewers, Moloney says.

In recent years football has grown exponentially in New Zealand, both in terms of participation and is now the most popular team sport for 5–17 year olds, she adds.

Spark: "Disappointed"

“We are naturally disappointed that we were unsuccessful in renewing the rights for the Premier League,” head of Spark Sport Jeff Latch says.

“The nature of our business is that we both win and lose content rights as they come to market and over the past few months we have secured a range of rights including extended NFL action, UFC, FIBA, the United Rugby Championship and Diamond League World Athletics.

“We’re proud to be the home of New Zealand Cricket content – Aotearoa’s most popular summer sport – and we still have plenty for football fans to sink their teeth into such as the Uefa Champions League, Uefa Europa League, and Uefa Conference league and we’ve got some exciting announcements coming up in the coming months which we know football fanatics will love.”

Earlier, Spark chief executive Jolie Hodson said her company was committed to Spark Sport. Her company would pursue new deals – but it was looking for a commercial return.

Spark caused a stir when it grabbed 2019 Rugby World Cup rights, but Sky struck back by paying a reported $400m for a new five-year deal covering All Blacks and Super Rugby matches through to 2025. The pair split cricket rights as new deals were announced in 2020. And last year, Spark nabbed the Rugby League World Cup but Sky signed a new NRL deal running through to 2027.

Spark said it would not comment until after Sky formalised its announcement.

Sky shares closed yesterday at $2.48

The stock, which had a 10:1 consolidation in September, is up 38 per cent for the year.

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