The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Printable Version

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - robertclark125 - 19-07-2023

I mentioned football, but any decision to scale back could affect rugby league as well, as via play hold championship rights.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Brekkie - 19-07-2023

And Union with the URC.

Backing up to the World Para Athletics where C4 just streamed an IPC feed on YouTube - doesn't even look like their is a post-event highlights show. Indeed although they've been gradually reducing the sport in the slots over the last few years seems the early Sunday morning and overnight slot midweek for a few random events have now vanished completely.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 19-07-2023

Potentially very problematic for the URC, in Scotland and NI in particular - Scottish sport unfortunately a particular speciality of Viaplay.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - robertclark125 - 19-07-2023

The Scottish Cup is in its last season with Viaplay, when the tournament does start in the autumn, so not so much of a problem there, and I would imagine for the pay TV side of the deal, both Sky and TNT would be keen to have it. As for the League cup, which is the Viaplay cup, the SPFL have the money for the season already locked in, that's been paid, and there's a legal agreement that the remaining money has to be paid.

I think what would be interesting is, if Viaplay decided to sub license some aspect of the league cup to another broadcaster. More about sub licensing below.

Regarding the URC, one option could be to transfer the rights to BBC Wales, BBC Scotland, and BBC NI in full, like what it was before Premier Sports took it all exclusive a few years ago. I doubt Sky would be interested, they seem to have lost all interest currently in the majority of rugby union coverage, but I wonder if Channel 4 or Channel 5 may want some URC rights, alongside the BBC nations.

Championship Rugby League had a less than ideal relationship with Sky, who only showed their Blackpool weekend, and the end of season play offs. Given that Channel 4 have some super league coverage, would they want to then expand into Championship rugby league? TNT have been rumoured to be looking at Super League, would they want the second tier as well?

As for the french top 14, TNT, when it was BT, lost the rights to Sky, who started off with on site commentary, and studio pres, but later, after a year, went to off tube commentary, without any pres. With it having the champions cup all the way, and the challenge cup from the knockout stages, with the early rounds of the challenge cup sub licensed to Viaplay, maybe TNT would want to complement their premiership coverage with top 14 coverage?

That also brings into question, if Viaplay are going to make changes, the future of Viaplay 2, and Viaplay extra.

And one suggestion was, Viaplay may sublicence the rights to another broadcaster. If they do, how much would they sub license, and who would be interested? On the reverse side, the sub license of the challenge cup rights, what happens there?

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - JamieMurph25 - 19-07-2023

(19-07-2023, 09:13 PM)robertclark125 Wrote:  The Scottish Cup is in its last season with Viaplay, when the tournament does start in the autumn, so not so much of a problem there, and I would imagine for the pay TV side of the deal, both Sky and TNT would be keen to have it. As for the League cup, which is the Viaplay cup, the SPFL have the money for the season already locked in, that's been paid, and there's a legal agreement that the remaining money has to be paid.

I think what would be interesting is, if Viaplay decided to sub license some aspect of the league cup to another broadcaster. More about sub licensing below.

Regarding the URC, one option could be to transfer the rights to BBC Wales, BBC Scotland, and BBC NI in full, like what it was before Premier Sports took it all exclusive a few years ago. I doubt Sky would be interested, they seem to have lost all interest currently in the majority of rugby union coverage, but I wonder if Channel 4 or Channel 5 may want some URC rights, alongside the BBC nations.

Championship Rugby League had a less than ideal relationship with Sky, who only showed their Blackpool weekend, and the end of season play offs. Given that Channel 4 have some super league coverage, would they want to then expand into Championship rugby league? TNT have been rumoured to be looking at Super League, would they want the second tier as well?

As for the french top 14, TNT, when it was BT, lost the rights to Sky, who started off with on site commentary, and studio pres, but later, after a year, went to off tube commentary, without any pres. With it having the champions cup all the way, and the challenge cup from the knockout stages, with the early rounds of the challenge cup sub licensed to Viaplay, maybe TNT would want to complement their premiership coverage with top 14 coverage?

That also brings into question, if Viaplay are going to make changes, the future of Viaplay 2, and Viaplay extra.

And one suggestion was, Viaplay may sublicence the rights to another broadcaster. If they do, how much would they sub license, and who would be interested? On the reverse side, the sub license of the challenge cup rights, what happens there?

What about DAZN? Especially after they recently launched DAZN1 on satellite, along with a pay-per-view channel.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 19-07-2023

Meanwhile RTE aired a preview show (wierdly billed as highlights) for the Women’s World Cup tonight so a good look at the official graphics - a very strange font being used but other than that they’re quite nice. Not sure why RTE felt they needed two presenters (Evanne Ni Chullain and Peter Collins) though when they’d only two pundits and it was only a one hour show.
George Hamilton, who seems to have scaled back his work for RTE in recent times, is on site and did an interview from Sydney with Stephanie Roche.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 20-07-2023

Technical breakdown on S4C's online coverage of Chelsea v. Wrexham from North Carolina.

There has often been occasional, brief blackouts through the coverage, most notably for a few minutes late in the first half where an English language commentary was audible as it looked like they had joined a backup feed.

A backup feed returned in the breakdown below after two minutes or so, with a scoreboard in the top left rather than S4C's own in the top right.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 20-07-2023

Looks like Viaplay will by the end of the year be pulling out of all markets except the Nordics and Holland, with the Baltic countries first to go.

https://www.viaplaygroup.com/sites/default/files/pr/202307206081-1.pdf 

No immediate change to the U.K. operation but looks like they are looking for a buyer or partner. Edit: explicitly said in this presentation that they are leaving UK, so looks like a big “For Sale” sign has just been hung up.

https://www.viaplaygroup.com/sites/default/files/pr/20230720_viaplay_report_presentation_q22023.pdf 

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Brekkie - 20-07-2023

Wonder if Premier could buy it back at a knock down price?

DAZN probably the best option to ensure the UK pay TV market isn't just Sky and TNT, though content wise TNT a good fit. The International Qualifiers perhaps the headline attraction.

However probably get the rights cheaper by letting Viaplay fold and the rights go back to the market.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 20-07-2023

A Premier buy back and reintegration would probably be best from the POV of the Dublin based staff, tbh.

An issue for Sky and TNT is that they’re both set up as U.K. and Ireland wide operations - the only difference in Sky’s channels is adverts, while TNT’s channels are identical. They are also both essentially linear based. Viaplay’s rights are mostly U.K. only, and while that wouldn’t rule out Sky or TNT, it would mean that they’d have to establish delivery channels to the U.K. only while not affecting ROI viewers. TNT does have the discovery+ option for this, though I’d suspect that might draw the wrath of UEFA if their content is tucked away from the main channels on a streaming only service.

DAZN may well see this as an opportunity, and while they also operate a single service for U.K. and Ireland, they could probably split it more easily than Sky or TNT could given they are streaming first effectively with one linear service.

Closing the service will be a disaster for some of the rights holders involved - the URC in particular could find itself with no main rights holder in Scotland, though I dare say BBC NI might be willing at the right price to step in for Ulster games. Seemingly the SPFL and/or SFA may already have received their rights fee for the remainder of the contract, I’m not clear on that aspect but it might prevent a financial disaster for the governing body albeit it won’t help the viewer.

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