Football-BSkyB retains premier league contract

[AussieVamp2]

LONDON (Reuters) - British Sky Broadcasting won the battle to televise premier league soccer on Wednesday, beating rivals with a bid of just over 1 billion pounds to retain rights to live games.

In one of the world's biggest broadcast deals, worth a total of 1.65 billion pounds, the Premier League also handed cable operator NTL the rights to broadcast pay-per-view games, while ITV outbid the BBC to win a highlights package.

"This produces ... an average of 548 million pounds over the three years... We believe this is an excellent result for English football, both for viewers and clubs," Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore told a news conference.

DEAL THAN DOUBLED

The television deal is worth more than double the last one in which BSkyB paid 670 million pounds for a four-year package of 60 live games, while the BBC paid 73 million pounds for highlights.

This time BSkyB will pay 1.11 billion pounds for 66 live games a year over three years starting next year, plus an extra 22.5 million pounds in a revenue share guaranteed to the Premier League from interactive services.

Meanwhile, NTL's Premium TV will pay 328 million pounds for rights to 40 games for pay- per-view screening and ITV will pay 183 million pounds for the highlights package.

TOUGH COMPETITION

The premier league games have been the foundation of BSkyB's success -- driving take-up of its satellite service, which now boasts more than 4.2 million direct-to-home subscribers.

But this time it faced considerable competition.

Broadcasters losing out will still be comforted by the thought that they will not be cut out of premier league football altogether.

Under regulatory rules, BSkyB was forced to provide games to rival cable operators and digital terrestrial broadcaster ONdigital -- which is owned by ITV companies Carlton Communications and Granada Group .

Nevertheless, dividing the pie under the new deal will leave the BBC, which has seen its sports menu depleted in recent years, with an empty plate as far as English league soccer is concerned.

[AussieVamp2]

BBC LOSES PREMIERSHIP RIGHTS
By Simon Stone, PA Chief Sports Reporter

The new TV deal - the rising cost of sport
The new TV deal - who has won what
The new TV deal - where do they go from here
They think it's all over, it is now - Davies
The BBC the prizes they have lost
Snatch of the day - 'Biggest blow ever to BBC'
BBC loss is Mr Smooth's gain


It was the prize the BBC could not afford to lose - yet they did.

Despite all the bravado of new chief executive Greg Dyke and all the sports rights which have slipped through their fingers in recent years, when it came to the crunch the BBC came up short.

So, when Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore announced who had won what in the biggest prize draw Britain has ever seen, an extra £20million a year from ITV proved enough to bring the downfall of Match of the Day.

With it will topple Football Focus and large question mark against the future of Grandstand on a Saturday afternoon.

"We are sorry the BBC has lost the Premier League rights," reflected acting director of sport Richard Sambrook.

"We believe ours was a fair and reasonable offer given that we are spending public money. We have to assume this is a loss leader for ITV.

"Match of the Day and Premier League highlights will continue on the BBC throughout next season.

"We would have preferred to continue telling the story of the Premier League but we are still optimistic that the FA Cup and England's crucial home internationals will be coming home to the BBC."

But, while the Beeb were licking their wounds, there was celebration at ITV, whose audacious £61million-a-season bid to screen highlights programmes on both Saturday and Sunday evenings ensures Des Lynam will be back in a familiar role from the beginning of the 2001-02.

With the BBC empire crumbling, Lynam could even be joined by some of his former colleagues, including Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen.

"I am personally thrilled to be re-united with the Premier League," he said.

"I am delighted for my ITV colleagues who have put an enormous amount of work into clinching this contract.

"I know that they will put a vast amount of effort into producing programmes of the highest order and make sure that football fans can continue to enjoy the Premiership on terrestrial television."

Lynam played a big role in ITV's bid, including a personal appearance at Premier League headquarters today.

But ultimately it was the sheer size of their offer, three times that of the BBC contract which will expire at the end of the forthcoming campaign, which won them the spoils.

The £183million, three-year deal is proof of the growing attraction of the Premier League, which was born just eight years ago.

But the figure is dwarfed by BSkyB, who were forced to crash through the £1billion barrier to retain the rights to the live Sunday-Monday slots they have enjoyed since 1992.

Aware that defeat could threaten the very existence of the organisation and in the knowledge that cable company ntl were a serious competitor, BSkyB fished deep into their pockets and came up with a sum of £1.11billion - a rise of almost 50% on the £670million they previously paid for a deal which ran one year longer than the one they have now been given.

"This is a powerful endorsement for BSkyB and we are delighted to be continuing our relationship with the Premier League for a further three seasons," said BSkyB chief executive Tony Ball.

"The new contract means that BSkyB will have the first and second choice of games each week, totalling 258 live matches over the next four years."

BSkyB maintain the continuity of the past nine years but ntl have given notice that they intend to be major rivals over the long term.

The American cable company, backed by Microsoft owner Bill Gates, came away from the negotiating table clutching the rights to screen pay-per-view matches on a Sunday afternoon.

Although the broadcaster will not be on air for another 13 months, the Premier League felt confident enough to allow them to proceed to the sealed bid process and emerged with a 40-match package which will bring a new dimension to football coverage.

BSkyB's pay-per-view experiment has been confined largely to major boxing promotions, although two Nationwide League games were screened the season before last.

ntl are promising to make their pictures available to all television viewers and could also be in the hunt for BBC employees whose skills are no longer required.

The matches will be shown on 37 consecutive Sundays, which will not clash with BSkyB's live package, with the remaining three games being shown on bank holidays.

The choice of matches will be made on a rolling basis with each team in the Premiership being shown at least once a season.

In total, the Premier League will benefit to the tune of more than £500million-a-season for the three years.

It will put them on a par with every major league in Europe, although the current riches have yet to transcend themselves into consistent success either on club or international stage.

"I would dispute that," claimed Scudamore. "In terms of the number of clubs reaching the latter stages of European competition, this has been our best season ever.

"Our investment in youth development has been remarkable and those players are now coming through to make first team appearances.

"It is going to take time but I am confident top quality youngsters will come through because of the work we are putting in."

[phaedrus]

Wow i was searching all over the net to find out who would get the coveted Premiere League TV contract, and lo and behold it surfaced here where i least expected it IN THE SPORTSBOOK RANTS AND RAVES SECTION...

[AussieVamp2]

they, of course, own a sportsbook

and digital television and digital television betting services

and now the games themselves......

[AussieVamp2]

with the premier league being the biggest betting game in the world, this is all just a little bit cozy.........

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information on the BSkyB group

BSkyB, incorporated in England and Wales in April 1988, currently operates a leading pay television broadcasting service in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with approximately 8.6 million subscribers to its services as of 31 March 2000.

BSkyB Group's principal activities consist of the operation (including production of programming), marketing and distribution (both via satellite, cable and digital terrestrial television) of wholly owned television channels and the marketing and distribution to direct to home customers of channels owned and operated by third parties (including some joint ventures in which BSkyB participates).

For the financial year ended 30 June 1999, BSkyB Group reported turnover of £1,545 million and a loss before tax of £389 million. As of 30 June 1999, BSkyB Group had net liabilities of £625 million. In its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 31 December 1999, BSkyB Group reported turnover of £850 million, a loss before tax of £62 million and, as at 31 December 1999, had net liabilities of £665 million.

BSkyB is a constituent of the FTSE-100 Index. Based on the Closing Middle Market Price of 1512p per BSkyB Share on 9 May 2000 (the last business day prior to the date of this announcement), BSkyB's current market capitalisation is approximately £27.6 billion.


information on the sig group

Sports Internet Group is one of the UK’s leading online providers of sports websites, statistics, betting and e-commerce services. Founded in 1999, Sports Internet Group has grown through acquisition and now consists of four key interdependent divisions:


Planetfootball: provision of web management and hosting services to football clubs and federations;


Opta: official statistical analysis for the FA Carling Premier League and Scottish Premier League;


Surrey Group: off-line and on-line sports betting;


Sports-Etail: e-commerce business focused on the provision of on-line merchandise sales for sports federations; currently contracted to the Football Association and the England Cricket Board.

Sports Internet Group now offers a combination of the above services through its own websites and websites it manages, which include Premiership, First Division football clubs and sports federations. It also maintains extensive links to major UK portals, including the provision of branded football news for Freeserve and LineOne, and statistics for Yahoo!’s FA Premiership Fantasy Football. In addition, Sports Internet Group recently announced an agreement with the Wireless Group to manage talkSport.net.

Peter Wilkinson, the Executive Deputy Chairman, was the founder of Planet Online and one of the architects of Freeserve. Jeremy Fenn, the Group Chief Executive, was previously Chief Executive of Leeds Sporting plc.

As of March 2000, Sports Internet Group recorded approximately 1.5 million unique users and approximately 30 million monthly page impressions making it a major sports website operator in the UK