Apple Interested in Bidding for English Premier League Streaming Rights?

[davie18]

I doubt ... First I would assume they would go with NBA or NFL. Plus I doubt that the customer base would be big enough to justify a huge pile of $$$ to be used for that.

Do you not know how popular the premier league is? Football in England is absolutely massive, I mean for example the FA cup final over here gets watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world every year...

It is the most popular sports league in the world, hence why the rights cost billions.

 

[fishmoose]

As a HUGE EPL outside the U.K I really hope this happens and Apple makes it an international product. Then I can finally watch the EPL without having to find pirated streams which would be awesome.

Glory Glory Man United!

 

[The Phazer]

My instinct is that Apple (if interested) would stick to the streaming element of the rights package. The steaming license is incredibly cheap when compared to the SKY broadcast deal due to it being a younger, less traditional delivery method and yet has huge potential to grow massively over the term of the license package, particularly if Apple get it right in terms of how the content is delivered to it's hardware (both existing and speculative)

What "streaming package"? There isn't a "streaming package". There has never been a "streaming package". There is very unlikely to ever be a "streaming package".

There are six packages of games. These include the streaming rights and the broadcast rights. One without the other isn't for sale. Trying to split them up would not make the streaming package cheap - Sky's bid is based on them having exclusive access to those games. They'd more than half it if that wasn't the case. So FAPL won't do it unless the streaming package was worth at least half the current offer - and you would never recoup that money.

Yes, Apple is sitting on a large pile of cash. But the reason they have a large pile of cash is because they don't spend it on bloody stupid ventures where the money is distinctly hard to recoup.

Phazer

----------

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)



Not to burst your bubble but average viewership for a standard premier league match here in the uk is much less than a million people

You think Apple couldn't supply that?

A million simultaneous SD quality video streams?

No, they couldn't. Not even close. The entire UK internet backbone would collapse. Even the iPlayer doesn't serve anything like that many simultaneous users, and that's suppose to use up a full third of the UK's network capacity.

Phazer

 

[srminton]

Not a chance in hell Apple would be able to get this. And why are all the Americans on here so interested? Your going to pay to watch English football? And considering how much it costs to pay for the rights and those players wages, it's another reason why this won't happen. Is 'soccer' REALLY that big in the US?

And as said, with Sky you get Sky Go for free and can stream over WiFi, 3G, internet etc. So you can watch in two way's.

You only get Sky Go for free if Sky is your TV service provider. Cheekily, they don't make this service available if you subscribe to Sky Sports on another service provider (e.g. if you get cable instead of satellite). Which is exactly the problem with monopolies, but that's another subject.....

 

[flynndean]

What "streaming package"? There isn't a "streaming package". There has never been a "streaming package". There is very unlikely to ever be a "streaming package".

Phazer

Apologies if I wasn't clear. I was simply positing that Apple COULD partner with somebody like ESPN or SKY, plump up a wad of cash and essentially be the online delivery method for the content via whatever service they dreamed up with the broadcaster supplying the commentary/studio analysis as per their standard broadcast. I would imagine that the cost to Apple to do this would be minimal (what I confusingly referred to as the "Streaming Element of the package") as it would essentially be them providing the infrastructure for one of the other broadcasters to deliver their content via Apple TV/iTunes.

I do admire your confidence in the status quo remaining though. I fully expect ALL games to be available for Live Streaming at some point in the near future simply due to the power of market forces. If you'd have told me in 1991 that half of the games in the Top Tier of English Football would NOT be played at 3pm on a Saturday and that around 150 of 760 games would be available to watch Live. I'd have laughed in your face...

If somebody told me in 2001 that I'd be able to buy just the one track off an album I didn't want the rest of at 2am while I was in my underwear...I'd have again laughed at them...

If I want to watch QPR vs. Wigan at 3pm on a Saturday and can't get to West London...Why shouldn't I be able to pay somebody some money so that I can sit at home and watch it? There IS a demand for it...and were it not for the attendance question, we'd be doing it already.

----------

You only get Sky Go for free if Sky is your TV service provider. Cheekily, they don't make this service available if you subscribe to Sky Sports on another service provider (e.g. if you get cable instead of satellite). Which is exactly the problem with monopolies, but that's another subject.....

Amen. (From an aggrieved Virgin Media Sky Sports HD Subscriber - I guess I'll just cry over my TiVo Peanut while fapping away at whatever HD content my 100MB Broadband can serve-up until someone busts Murdoch's balls)

 

[Jonny1989]

I have an issue with the way U.S. fans arbitrarily choose an EPL team to support. It creeps me out. You can't wear the shirt unless you've actually lived there.

Thats not a good way to look at it at all, if I was supporting a US team and wearing a shirt i would be promoting sponsors and the team where i live. That will gain them recognition towards my friends and even they might support them. Every little helps, BPL is the biggest league in the world because of this. If teams only allowed fans from their areas you would see every london team in the top league. Some people support who plays for them as to the team they are in regardless. If Becks went to NYRB instead of LAG then i would be more aware of that team and probably want that team to win.

So who wants only local fans? nobody. However i agree with you for everyone likening ManUnited but who supports Malaga when you can support Real or Barce if you want?

My 2pence.

 

[apolloa]

What "streaming package"? There isn't a "streaming package". There has never been a "streaming package". There is very unlikely to ever be a "streaming package".

There are six packages of games. These include the streaming rights and the broadcast rights. One without the other isn't for sale. Trying to split them up would not make the streaming package cheap - Sky's bid is based on them having exclusive access to those games. They'd more than half it if that wasn't the case. So FAPL won't do it unless the streaming package was worth at least half the current offer - and you would never recoup that money.

Yes, Apple is sitting on a large pile of cash. But the reason they have a large pile of cash is because they don't spend it on bloody stupid ventures where the money is distinctly hard to recoup.

Phazer

----------



A million simultaneous SD quality video streams?

No, they couldn't. Not even close. The entire UK internet backbone would collapse. Even the iPlayer doesn't serve anything like that many simultaneous users, and that's suppose to use up a full third of the UK's network capacity.

Phazer

No the internet backbone would not "collapse" mate! Your deluded if you think millions don't stream content! Ever heard of You Tube? Love Film? Blinkbox? etc etc etc. It would be a very crappy poor backbone if that was the case and the UK would have only a few thousand BB users.

You only get Sky Go for free if Sky is your TV service provider. Cheekily, they don't make this service available if you subscribe to Sky Sports on another service provider (e.g. if you get cable instead of satellite). Which is exactly the problem with monopolies, but that's another subject.....

haha good point. Maybe they will introduce it as it can tie in with your subscriptions, but you could also get the free channels like Sky news etc. Maybe one day.

 

[asleep]

Fix iOS5 first ......... play sports mogul after.

 

[flynndean]

No the internet backbone would not "collapse" mate! Your deluded if you think millions don't stream content! Ever heard of You Tube? Love Film? Blinkbox? etc etc etc. It would be a very crappy poor backbone if that was the case and the UK would have only a few thousand BB users

iPlayer's HD Streams are what I'm thinking as the absolute minimum stream quality for this hypothetical Apple service (Sky Go just doesn't cut the mustard presently for me). iPlayer apparently handles about 500,000 simultaneous streams (a mix of both SD & HD) at it's absolute peak. It would fall over if ever there was a group of shows each pulling in multiple millions of simultaneous viewers (like a cluster of 3pm EPL games).

That's not to say it couldn't happen. I just think that it would take one hell of a back-end to make it the seamless, high quality service that Apple would want to associate themselves with.

 

[Wicked1]

Yawn

 

[Ironduke]

NFL should be called RoidBall

I am sure you all agree

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Incorrect, it's actually illegal to show 3pm kick offs live in the UK

It's not illegal, it's against the Union of European Football Associations rules of broadcast. There is a difference. Just like driving the wrong-way on a one-way street is illegal because it's a public street monitored by police; but driving the wrong way in a parking lot is not illegal - it's just against the parking lot owner's rules.

Yes, the Union of European Football Associations can sue someone for violating their rules of broadcast, but it is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal trial.

 

[apolloa]

iPlayer's HD Streams are what I'm thinking as the absolute minimum stream quality for this hypothetical Apple service (Sky Go just doesn't cut the mustard presently for me). iPlayer apparently handles about 500,000 simultaneous streams (a mix of both SD & HD) at it's absolute peak. It would fall over if ever there was a group of shows each pulling in multiple millions of simultaneous viewers (like a cluster of 3pm EPL games).

That's not to say it couldn't happen. I just think that it would take one hell of a back-end to make it the seamless, high quality service that Apple would want to associate themselves with.

Sky Broadband currently supplies 3.4 million customers in the UK with its internet service but has the simple aspiration of becoming the UK’s number one ISP - something which it’s backed with over 1 billion pounds of investment to date including a just announced upgrade of its core network to include the country’s first ever 100 Gigabit per second technology which would ultimately allow 4.6 million people to stream HD video simultaneously.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/43281/sky-broadband-wifi-hotspots-cloud

And..

Customers of the popular Sky Broadband (BSkyB) service look set to benefit from a significant internet capacity upgrade after the UK media giant added a new 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) fibre optic cable link between Birmingham and London.
Sky has also introduced Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to the new link, which craftily uses the different colours of laser light to transmit more information at the same time. This method allows Sky to turn their physical 100Gbps link into one that can move data at speeds of more than 7Tbps (Terabits per second).
As if that wasn't enough, Sky envisages having to deploy five more links of a similar style around the country in 2012. This, they claim, should keep the operator up to speed with the ever growing capacity demands of their internet access customers; especially at peak times.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/20...-massive-7tbps-internet-capacity-upgrade.html

So yeah, about that 1 million people streaming.....

 

[jouster]

...As a NUFC supporter it annoys me that they are rarely shown anywhere in the US! I would LOVE a US based streaming option that would allow me to follow them each week, but that won't happen anytime soon.

They're on today!

 

[daveathall]

Leeds fan, I take it?

Now that was funny, made me laugh, and I'm a Leeds fan.

 

[Zelnaga]

Apple to buy Premier League? Hell Yeah, ill be up for that.

NBA and NFL? Combine the both you would buy for their TV rights and you might just scratch the Premier Leagues actual TV right cost.

Theyre league is only seen an America, its a joke. Premier League is seen world wide. Thats why Apple wants Football, not fake rugby or fake netball.

 

[kiranmk2]

Makes perfect sense even if the Daily Mail have made it up/got it from a mad tramp. The rights belong to the Premier League who can split them up how they want. If they get a sniff that the internet streaming rights could be worth something you can be you house on the fact they'll try and exploit it.

Think of this, the League make streaming rights separate from live broadcasting rights and sell them separately. Now Sky has to make a decision: I'm sure only 5-10% of Sky customers actually use Sky Go to watch live football (after all, if they've subscribed they're likely to be watching at home) so now the question for Sky is - do they spend another £500 million or so on the streaming rights to try and block Apple/Google or do they risk leaving them. For Apple it could be a great way to get AppleTV into a lot of countries (a lot of Premier League fans are based in Asia these days where internet connections are faaaaast) and not just for football, but for all iTunes content. Think about it: $99 for the box, then $10 for a match, $20/month for all the matches involving one team, $30/month for any match. Add on $5 for HD. Add on $5 for the ability to stream any film/tv shows (if Apple can throw enough money at the studios). Then after 6 months-1 year, remove the subsidisation for the tv/film package and you've now got people hooked on the AppleTV.

Even if Apple don't want to do this they can use the threat of this to get their own way with other content providers (i.e. we could buy the rights to anything we want, so play friendly with us or we'll buy out your most popular content and cut you out all together).

 

[davie18]

Makes perfect sense even if the Daily Mail have made it up/got it from a mad tramp. The rights belong to the Premier League who can split them up how they want. If they get a sniff that the internet streaming rights could be worth something you can be you house on the fact they'll try and exploit it.

Think of this, the League make streaming rights separate from live broadcasting rights and sell them separately. Now Sky has to make a decision: I'm sure only 5-10% of Sky customers actually use Sky Go to watch live football (after all, if they've subscribed they're likely to be watching at home) so now the question for Sky is - do they spend another £500 million or so on the streaming rights to try and block Apple/Google or do they risk leaving them. For Apple it could be a great way to get AppleTV into a lot of countries (a lot of Premier League fans are based in Asia these days where internet connections are faaaaast) and not just for football, but for all iTunes content. Think about it: $99 for the box, then $10 for a match, $20/month for all the matches involving one team, $30/month for any match. Add on $5 for HD. Add on $5 for the ability to stream any film/tv shows (if Apple can throw enough money at the studios). Then after 6 months-1 year, remove the subsidisation for the tv/film package and you've now got people hooked on the AppleTV.

Even if Apple don't want to do this they can use the threat of this to get their own way with other content providers (i.e. we could buy the rights to anything we want, so play friendly with us or we'll buy out your most popular content and cut you out all together).

You're simplyfying it far too much.

You mention the premier league charging £500 million for online streaming - first of all not sure where you plucked this figure from.

But also, you do realise that this would mean that the rights that sky would pay for would be greatly decreased in value if they were to do this.

Explanation: Sky currently pay £1.6 billion or whatever it is to have exclusive rights of x amount of games for x amount of years. That exclusivity is extremely key.

So if sky had the rights to broadcast games on TV, but then apple had the rights to stream them online, this would be very damaging to sky, hence they wouldn't be willing to pay as much for the rights, which in turn means that the premier league possibly wouldn't gain very much money at all, if anything from what you proposed.

Plus you mention different packages where you could pay $30 / month to get every single match. How on earth is that going to happen? I currently pay $30 / month with sky and get what, like 2 or 3 games a weekend? So that is only 30% of the total games that are on, yet you think somehow apple is going to be able to pay a third of what sky pay for the rights, yet show more than three times as many games, and it would also end up to the same cost for the consumer. Do you see how that makes no sense at all?

I've explained that in a terrible way but I guess you see what I mean.

 

[TopToffee]

I doubt it'll happen, but please please please please please!

 

[whathesaid]

I don't see this happening, first it's the 'Daily Mail' and second Sky wouldn't give this up without a massive fight, and thirdly...it's the 'Daily Mail'.

 

[Qfic]

Epl

As an American whom watches EPL, between Foxsoccer.tv and ESPN I have more access to all the matches then the Brits do. If Apple wants to get in on a piece of the action is all the better as long as it doesn't further to fracture the sources I have to go to.

Up the Arse-nal!

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Football in England is absolutely massive, I mean for example the FA cup final over here gets watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world every year...
It is the most popular sports league in the world, hence why the rights cost billions.

yeah, I know. Years ago we heard the song "football coming home". So yes, very important for UK and CW.
But still: Is the customer base big enough ? Many people will watch in family, with friends or sports pubs. Others will first need to by AppleTV to be able to see. Not everyone has fast Internet still these days.
So I'm not yet convinced that it would be a good investment. But doesn't matter, they have enough cash-on-hand.

 

[babyj]

If Apple are looking at this to increase sales of set top boxes (Apple TV or TV sets) then there is zero chance of them doing a deal with Sky as they would be in direct competition. Sky make their money by selling multiple products (TV, broadband, phone, mobile) direct to the public so there is no benefit to them.

A partnership with someone else who isn't a broadcaster (i.e. cable TV provider) is possible with ESPN being the obvious candidate. They could take the TV rights and Apple the streaming rights - there will still be money in the TV rights for a good few years to come.

Think a lot of the Americans commenting really don't get how big the Premier League is, not just in the UK but all around the world. Man Utd games are on average watched by over 60 million people, the league is watched in over 640 million homes, annual TV audience of 5 billion and the stats go on.

Put together all the main US sports then double it and you're still some way off the Premier League. Which is why it would be so important to Apple if they want to make inroads to the TV market, easily the number one target for them.

 

[WoodNUFC]

Big game tonight, Man Utd eh?

Big game, big result! Go Toon! Had to follow the live texts on the beeb :-/

 

[leomac08]

I came here after Tim Howard scored a goal for everton!

GOLAZOOOOOOOOO!!!