By Robbie Butler

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with posts I have written on sports broadcasting. There is a dedicated tab to the topic here. A common theme that runs through these is the ability of suppliers (broadcasters) to extract an economic profit from those seeking the product, often by virtue of the monopoly they hold in the market.

If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, the past 5-7 days has seen an dramatic shift in power from supplier to consumer. Subscription sports channels throughout Europe, North America and elsewhere have seen their live content evaporate in a matter if days. The postponement of football, basketball, formula one, tennis, golf, and the list goes on, has surely resulted in a surge in cancellations of sports subscription channels. 

From experience, cancelling these is difficult in normal times. One can only imagine what it is like now. It begs the question, how will the providers respond?

Could a reduction in price be on the cards? Or cancellation of the March/April charges? 

A 2015 Ofcom Report which I wrote about here in 2016 identified "which specific sports and competitions within sports are important to subscribers". If these are no longer being provided to subscribers is it fair to charge full price, or even charge at all? 

It might be time for sports channels to rethink their present strategy.

By Robbie Butler

For UK and Ireland subscribers of live Premier League games, we are now under a month away from the arrival of a third supplier in the market – Amazon, via their streaming service Amazon Prime. For those unfamiliar with the history of the broadcasting of top flight football in England, the game has moved from provision by free-to-air services in the 1980s, to subscription television since 1992.

Our paper in the Journal of Sports Economics this year explains why the BSkyB monopoly from 1992 to 2007 was brought to an end by the European Commission. However, since then Sky Sports has competed with only one other provider at a given time. While the competition has changed from Setanta Sports, to ESPN, to BT Sports, the ending of the 12-year-old duopoly by Amazon next month is uncharted territory.

While the European Commission’s intervention in the market, to break up the monopoly, sought to protect consumers, it has only resulted in making it worse. A 3rd provider may be another step in the wrong direct.

From December 3rd Amazon Prime will show 2 of the 20 live games it has rights to screen during the 2019/20 season. However, unlike Sky Sports and BT Sports it won’t be possible to watch all live games as some occur simultaneously.  Crystal Palace v Bournemouth will kick-off at 7.30pm on December 3rd while Burnley v Manchester City will start at 8:15pm. This means a clash between part of the second half of the 7.30pm game and first half of the 8.15pm game.

Things get worse the following night. On Wednesday the 4th, five games will kick-off together at 7.30pm (Chelsea v Aston Villa, Leicester v Watford, Manchester United v Tottenham, Southampton v Norwich Wolves v West Ham) while the Merseyside Derby between Liverpool and Everton will start at 8.15pm.
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Given the kick-off times in the second round of games Amazon Prime will show on the 26th of December, it will only be possible to watch 8 of the 20 games in their entirety. All 128 games on Sky Sports, and the 52 games on BT Sports can be watched as they do not clash with one another. The 3rd provider has a different set of dynamics and one has to wonder how customers will react.

By Robbie Butler

I have previously spoken about broadcasting and the Premier League on this blog on numerous occasion (see here and here) and have a more detailed analysis of supply in the market published in the Journal of Sports Economics (see here). Things have developed further for customers in the Republic of Ireland since the return of the Premier League last week. Let's take a closer look.

To summaries what I have previously said, it seems that customers of subscription television were best off when the service was provided by a monopoly. The best of all scenarios was the free-to-air model that existed until 1992 for top tier English football. However, following BSkyB's purchasing of the rights from the 1992/93 season, consumer surplus started to be reduced. The European ruling to ban monopoly selling of broadcasting rights from 2006/07 resulted two providers selling the product. This will move to 3 this year in the UK, with the arrival of Amazon, and 4 in the Republic of Ireland. 

The Republic of Ireland is not subject to the 3pm Saturday blackout rule in the UK. As such live games can be screened on television. Premier Sports has the right to screen these games. During 2017/18, these games came as part of the Sky Sports subscription. 

Sky now sells both BT Sport and Premier Sports as part of an "extra" sports package, with the pricing varying initially from between €10 and about €17 depending on circumstances. An extra payment of somewhere between €20 and €40 is required for Sky Sports. While customers are receiving a reduced rate in many cases buy the BT Sport and Premier Sports subscription, the irony of course is that people are now paying for something (3pm Saturday game) that they were getting for free last year! 

if you are paying the extra charge, you are getting BT Sports. The rest is hardly extra. And if Premier Sports is to be considered extra, Sky Sports customers are then arguably getting less during 2019/20 then they were in 2018/19, aside from 2 additional games. 

By Robbie Butler,

This summer's GAA Championship broadcasting coverage by RTÉ was recently announced. In total the free-to-air provider will screen 31 football, hurling and camogie matches from May until September (excluding possible replays), BSkyB will again screen 14 games exclusively live on subscription channel Sky Sports, and share a further six matches with RTÉ. In total, a minimum of 45 games will be broadcast live on both terrestrial and free-to-air television over the coming months.

While the volume of live games being broadcast does not compare to the Premier League (200 matches will be screened live next season), 45 fixtures on television is very big when one compares it even to the recent past of the GAA.

Before competition structure was dramatically altered in the late 1990s and early 2000s, competitions were a straight knockout. The number of games (excluding replays) was therefore N-1. Assuming 32 counties of Ireland entered both the Liam McCarthy and Sam Maguire, the maximum number of games per year was limited to 62.

The changes to competition structure have removed this limit and significantly increased broadcasting revenues that can be generated. It should be no surprise to see a round-robin format now used in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship, and in the later stages of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. As many international competitions such as the Premier League and NFL continue to demonstrate, the revenue achievable from broadcasting deals can mean that gate-receipts become secondary. 

With the current broadcasting agreement set to run until 2021, the status quo of 45 games per season will likely continue for the next two year. However, do not be surprised to see additional fixtures from 2021. This may mean screening earlier games in the provincial championships or further rule changes, to expand upon existing league formats and other second-chance routes. 

By Robbie Butler

Sunday the 16th of August 1992 is somewhat synonymous in the history of English football. It was on that day at 4pm that the top division (re-branded as the Premiership) went behind a pay-wall. Thus Sky Sports Football was born. The rest is history.

From the start of the 2019/20 season 200 live games will be broadcast across three subscription channels; Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon's UK Prime Video. These games will be shown at times generally between Friday evening and Monday night.

It is safe to say, the movement from free-to-air to subscription television has been a huge success for the broadcasters, clubs and players. While ardent football fans could probably tell you Teddy Sheringham scored for Nottingham Forrest on that day in August 1992, in a 1-0 win over Liverpool, most GAA fans would probably not know the equivalent day in their sport.

From the first television broadcast of a GAA match in 1962 until 2010, all games were available on free-to-air television in this country. But as all fans of Ireland's indigenous game now know, some of the content can only be viewed on subscription television.

This changed (I believe) on Saturday the 6th of February 2010. At 7.30pm that evening Meath lined out against Armagh in the National Football League in Navan, with the game only available to television viewers on subscription channel Setanta Sports 1. What has happened since has not been as dramatic as the shift in football but rather a slow movement towards subscription coverage. In 2014, Sky Sports joined the party and has since screened 20 live games each summer, 6 of which are exclusive. This will continue until at least 2022.

And what then?

In February 2016, the then director-general of the GAA Páraic Duffy wrote in his annual report to Congress:
“Any restriction that prohibits the GAA from engaging with all interested parties, including subscription TV providers, would seriously reduce our negotiating power and thus our ability to achieve the true worth of our assets, and would inevitably lead to a greatly reduced media-rights income. In what is already a small pool of potential broadcast partners, we must ensure the existence of a genuine market for our games and maintain the option of engaging with all interested parties, regardless of whether they are free-to-air or subscription providers. This flexibility and freedom is crucial if we are to nurture a competitive tender process and thus ensure that the GAA achieves the proper value for its rights."

The Irish Statute Book ensures that all four All-Ireland Finals must be shown free-to-air. Everything else, as things currently stand, is up for grabs. The Munster Hurling Championship; the Super 8s; all eight semi-finals. While we are unlikely to see the dramatic shift that has occurred in football in England, it is reasonable to suggest that the six Championship games currently exclusive to Sky Sports will grow. And this is before National League games are included. You have been warned.

By Robbie Butler

The UEFA Nations League returned last night and will continue over the coming days. For those unfamiliar with the tournament, the competition has been created by UEFA to reduce the number of friendly internationals teams play, and offers an opportunity to qualify for Euro 2020. Unfortunately for the Republic of Ireland we have had little to cheer. Things could change on Monday night when the country travels to Denmark, and a win would lift team moral going into the UEFA European Qualifiers.

The game on Monday night (and those in the Nations League that have preceded it) has one oddity when compared to other Irish international games. It is a competitive fixture that is not available on free-to-air television. The reason this is unusual is down to European Commission rules and the Irish Statute Book.

At present, EU Member States can designate sporting and cultural events as being of major importance to society. Any events so designated should be available on a free-to-air television service.The  Irish Statute Book (2016) currently says "All events deemed to be “of major importance to society for which the right of a qualifying broadcaster to provide coverage on a live basis on free television services should be provided in the public interest”. This list includes, amongst other things,Ireland’s home and away qualifying games in the European Football Championship and the FIFA World Cup Tournaments, and Ireland games in the European Football Championship Finals and FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament.

Effectively, this means all competitive games involving the team must be shown on free-to-air television in the "public interest".

​The Nations League has recently joined the list of UEFA competitions. I wonder if this competition will be added to the Statute Book when reviewed by the Former Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Last year the Minister added the "All-Ireland Senior Ladies Gaelic Football and Camogie Finals to the Free to Air designation list with full backing from the Cabinet and the European Commission".

It would seem to make sense for Nations League games to join the list. 

By Robbie Butler

In the coming months those interested in the English Premier League will know the broadcasters that have won the rights to show live league matches from August 2019 to May 2022. I have previously addressed this topic here and here.

I am at a loss to see how the “competition” forced upon the market by the European Commission has in any way helped consumers. With the likes of Amazon, Netflix and Facebook all suggested as potential bidders, the big losers in this could be the very people that opening up the market sought to protect. To understand why, an overview of the seven packages that are on offer from 2019 to 2022 need to be considered. These are presented below. 

Currently, two broadcasters, (BSkyB and BT) share the rights to the 168 live games per season screened. In order to win one of the seven packages a broadcaster must make a single, sealed-bid prior to the decision date. As no guidance as to what others are willing to bid is provided, bidders must bid high in order to have a chance of success. In some cases, this could be interpreted as overbidding in order to ensure success. Great news for the Premier League but bad news for bidders and customers of subscription channels.

The large increase in the cost of winning the rights, which will probably go above £2 billion per season from 2019-20, sustains the inflation we see in the transfer market. The reason players today earn far more than players even ten years ago, is largely due to inflation in the price of live games.
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In theory seven different companies could share the packages listed. If this were the case, seven different subscription charges would be required to watch all live games. As strange as this may seem, consumers would probably be better off if one company, for example Sky Sports as was the case from 1992 to 2007, won the rights to all 200 games. Odd that a monopoly is preferable to "competition".

The reality of course is that this is not competition but instead has led to the creation of seven different monopolies. Prices would fall, and with it transfer fees and player salaries, if more than one broadcaster could buy the same package. Only then will the market be competitive.

By John Considine

The Deloitte Football Money League (DFML) presents a list of the Top 20 clubs by revenue.  The big news this year was that Manchester United had slipped outside the top three for the first time in the 17-year publication of the report. The report also carries information on the benefits of different revenue streams to the clubs.  In this post I will focus on the benefits of broadcasting rights to the clubs.

The figure opposite outlines the proportion of each club’s revenue that comes from broadcast, matchday and commercial revenue streams.  With the focus on broadcast revenues, the clubs are ordered by country with the Italians on the left, followed by the Spanish, English, German and French.  This ordering roughly corresponds to the relative importance of broadcast revenue to the clubs.

It might seem strange to have the Italian clubs lead the list because, with the exception of Juventus, they are sliding down the DFML.  Of course, the importance of broadcasting could also represent the relative importance of the other income streams.  For example, the small matchday revenues (possibly attributed to stadium ownership) for Italian clubs makes the broadcast  revenues seem more important.  While Juventus have the highest proportion of their revenue from broadcasting, the amount they actually receive (€166m) is less than Real Madrid (€188.3) and Barcelona (€188.2m).  The DFML report notes that 2013 was an unusually good year for Juventus in terms of broadcasting.  Despite "only advancing to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Juventus received the highest distribution (€65.3m) of any club in the competition".  The €166m Juventus received in broadcasting revenues in 2013 was a 77% increase on 2012.

For the last number of seasons the Italian clubs have moved to collective selling of broadcast rights (reversing an 1999 anti-trust ruling in the Italian Courts). In the case of the Italian clubs the key issue is the distribution of the broadcast rights.  Ed Thompson has a superb explanation of how the Italian clubs distribute the revenues (here).  It is a system that heavily favours the status-quo and bigger clubs. Juventus in particular is a big winner under the Italian system.

The Spanish clubs sell the domestic broadcast rights to their games individually.  This results in Real Madrid and Barcelona getting a larger share of that pie.  Last year The Guardian reported (here) that Real Madrid received €140m while Granada received only €12m.  Although Barcelona exited the Champions League at the same stage as in 2012 they received an increase in broadcast revenue from that source.

German clubs benefitted from a new international right deal for the Bundesliga.  Two of the four in the above table also benefitted from getting to the Champions League final.  Although they lost the final, Borussia Dortmund were the biggest winner in terms of the increase in broadcast revenues (45%).  Chelsea's return from Europe went in the opposite direction.  However, this was offset by an increase in revenue from the Premier League.  There was also modest increases for the other Premier League clubs.

The importance of a good run in Europe's premier competition is best illustrated by Paris Saint-Germain.  Their broadcast revenue grew by a massive 93% as a result of reaching the Champions League quarter-finals whereas the previous year they were eliminated at the group stage of the Europa League.  Failure to qualify from one's domestic league can be seriously costly in terms of broadcast revenues.