Bloomberg: Apple Considering Bid for English Premier League Streaming Rights in the UK

[UK-MacAddict]

Really hope this doesn’t happen.

I already have to subscribe to Sky TV, BT Sport and Amazon to watch all the matches in a season.

 

[syklee26]

come on Apple, not just in UK! Global rights please!

 

[UK-MacAddict]

What is the 3pm blackout? I remember the FA cup always used to be at 3pm, but it's long since moved towards the evening at 5:30ish?

It’s just a ban on showing any football on TV between 3-5pm.

It was implemented I think to help out the lower leagues initially by encouraging people to attend matches in person.

 

[Duncan-UK]

Originally i wrote it cant be the case, but on checking it was. Why did the EU get involved in this, and not in any other European League's tv rights?

i cant think of any european country which has such a convoluted rights split.
the only reason Portuguese games are split are that Benfica choose to show their own games, everything else is SportTV. In i think 2027, it will go back to collective selling and it will almost certainly mean all games are on SportTV.


and when you think about it, its a very British way of dealing with it. take a situation which isnt broken, announce you are going to introduce competition which will make it better for the consumers, and make it much worse for them but companies make more money. What would promote competition would be to ban them from selling exclusive rights to anything, meaning two different companies could buy the rights for the same games or the whole package.

I think its a very EU way of thinking... That a company that loses exclusivity should then reduce its price to reflect this...

The sort of painful naivety that only exists in Brussels.

What is British is to take this instruction and gold plate it - one of the reasons people voted to leave was that they were annoyed with the interference from the EU - without possibly realising that it was the UK Civil Service that was the main villain over zealously applying the rules. Most other Member States merely pay lip service and ignore anything they dont want.

 

[chenks]

one of the reasons people voted to leave was that they were annoyed with the interference from the EU

now that is very naïve!

"leavers" voted leave for a few reasons.
- racism/bigotry (a sizeable percent)
- they believed the lies being peddled to them (remember the £350 million a week bus?)
- they have the "little england" mentality

even the fisherman and farmers that though voting leaving was right are now realising it wasn't the right choice.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I think its a very EU way of thinking... That a company that loses exclusivity should then reduce its price to reflect this...

The sort of painful naivety that only exists in Brussels.

What is British is to take this instruction and gold plate it - one of the reasons people voted to leave was that they were annoyed with the interference from the EU - without possibly realising that it was the UK Civil Service that was the main villain over zealously applying the rules. Most other Member States merely pay lip service and ignore anything they dont want.

also i think a lot of that interference from the EU never existed but was invented by Daily Mail and Telegraph journalists. its actually crazy how many Boris Johnson himself was credited with when at the Telegraph. he personally invented the banning of odd shaped bananas, the standardising of condom sizes at a smaller size to make the italians happy, the banning of sausages, the implementing of a standard for manure with EU inspectors going round farms and many more. His whole career as the Brussels correspondent for the Telegraph involved making up stories that made the EU look bad.

I wish the EU had made more of this in the press, up until the UK exited, the EU maintained a searchable database off all the made up british media 'barmy EU beurocrats want to ban....' type articles with the correct information beside it. it ran into thousands of articles.

 

[Piplodocus]

Great: an injection of even more money into an already obscenely wealthy sport.

That's capitalism for you. If you don't like it watch smaller/local clubs or something other than football.

 

[SactoGuy18]

It’s weird but it appear the PL clubs themselves are in favour of the 3pm ban. Which is really annoying.

No wonder the top flight Premier League teams are avoiding the 1500 hours (British time) window--all the best games are now 1200 hours or circa 1730-1800 hours British time.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Great: an injection of even more money into an already obscenely wealthy sport.

Companies want the rights to the popular sports and teams, it is just business.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I thought they had no money and were cutting back ??

They cut back, didn't cut to zero.

 

[Rich74]

Can't see this happening. Couple of games over specific periods like amazon maybe but cant see this leaving sky.

I dont like SKY but Apples platform is still far to niche in the UK compared to Skys offering.

Money talks. If Apple were to put a higher bid than Sky...

 

[chenks]

No wonder the top flight Premier League teams are avoiding the 1500 hours (British time) window--all the best games are now 1200 hours or circa 1730-1800 hours British time.

well duh, that's because they get moved to be on TV, as they can't show them at 3pm

 

[roar08]

Wasn’t/isn’t Apple also looking at Formula 1 or am I making that up?

I don't recall this, but F1 has F1 TV:

Stream Formula 1 live | F1 TV

Watch all F1 sessions live with F1 TV. See more of the drivers with the 20 onboard cameras, live team radios and exclusive live timing.

www.formula1.com

 

[roar08]

Did they hear it from their friend's hairdresser whose brother-in-law works in an Apple store?

I was just talking to my kid's karate instructor friend who's an avocado farmer about this.

 

[chenks]

I don't recall this, but F1 has F1 TV:

yes but it's still broadcast on normal TV.
Sky currently has the rights to broadcast all races.

 

[The Game 161]

wish we could have a league pass for PL

 

[chenks]

wish we could have a league pass for PL

you mean just for your own team?

 

[ForkHandles]

"(or football, as it's called outside North America)."

We call it football as it's a game we play with a ball, that you kick with your foot.

I never got why Americans spent all that time correcting English words such as theatre, centre, colour to make them make more sense and then called their ball game, played with hands, football.

Should we start a common sense campaign to rename it to Handball?

 

[lazyrighteye]

I don't recall this, but F1 has F1 TV:

Stream Formula 1 live | F1 TV

Watch all F1 sessions live with F1 TV. See more of the drivers with the 20 onboard cameras, live team radios and exclusive live timing.

www.formula1.com

Nice.
I thought I heard/read somewhere (which likely would have been here at MR) that Apple was interested in, or bidding on, some sort of F1 deal. Anyway, thanks for that update.

 

[ForkHandles]

IIRC it was the EU that mandated one supplier - so there's no need now to obey that rule - but I think it has tended to drive up the price of the rights so the PL are quite happy for this to continue. Screws the consumer though. Hopefully we will eventually transition to all games being available and the ridiculous Saturday 15:00 rule being abandoned. It isn't the 1950s anymore...

Games were played at 3pm as the players didn't leave the factories in the early 1900s until midday on a Saturday.

The EU would never have mandated one supplier, they existed purely to open up markets, not close them down.

 

[Pezimak]

Fantastic! So long as it blocks Sky from owning them, but it’ll face a fight as Sky before it was bought by the American giant Comcast, was no stranger to spending billions sterling on football rights. And making all its customers pay for it. The football players and staff all received a nice pay rise one year purely thanks to the 5 billion sterling Sky spent on rights to air their matches true fact.

 

[Pezimak]

I don't recall this, but F1 has F1 TV:

Stream Formula 1 live | F1 TV

Watch all F1 sessions live with F1 TV. See more of the drivers with the 20 onboard cameras, live team radios and exclusive live timing.

www.formula1.com

And that’s a con, I use that but I have to use a VPN, because in the UK Sky has total ownership and rights to air F1 only, and they just renewed there contrast too despite protest from the teams. If the F1 owners catch you watching their service in the UK apparently they will ban you permanently. Can’t upset the profits to giant corporations who have monopolies now can we. Sky charge a ridiculous fortune for you to watch F1 with then FYI, F1 TV is much better valie even with a VPn cost.

 

[chenks]

Sky before it was bought by the American giant Comcast, was no stranger to spending billions sterling on football rights. And making all its customers pay for it

you think apple would buy the rights and give it away for free?
they will charge for it.

 

[chenks]

Sky charge a ridiculous fortune for you to watch F1 with then FYI, F1 TV is much better valie even with a VPn cost.

£15 for F1 only sub, is F1 TV any cheaper?
also, it's included in the main sports package subscription, just like every other sport is included in the subscription.

 

[Pezimak]

you think apple would buy the rights and give it away for free?
they will charge for it.

Of course not that’s ridiculous. But I don’t expect them to charge you a huge premium either, or force you to take a sports package at inflated cost with all sports as they don’t offer football on its own like Sky have, and then they charge you extra for HD, extra again for 4K…