Blog: EPL

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Watch Together: BT Sport adapts to lockdown, offering synchronised group streaming

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Alistair Taylor

4 Feb 2021

The pandemic-enforced prohibition of fans in attendance at sporting events has weakened the viewing spectacle, forcing rights holders and operators to experiment with the viewing experience. The NHL pioneered the drive for change in terms of the viewing format, vying to create a ‘ made-for-TV ’ product for its 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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English Premiership Rugby gets set for a digital shake-up

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Alistair Taylor

17 Dec 2020

English Premiership Rugby

Tech major Amazon is reportedly looking to add to its burgeoning sports right portfolio, targeting the domestic broadcast rights for English Premiership Rugby. London Irish owner, Mick Crossan, confirmed the giant’s entry into the tender process to the Mail on Sunday , following Amazon’s experiment with live streaming rugby after its acquisition and £20 million lifeline for the exclusive UK broadcast rights to last months’ inaugural Autumn Nations Cup .

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WWE Q3 Earnings – An innovative digital strategy helps WWE overcome COVID-19 disruption

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Alistair Taylor

12 Nov 2020

World Wrestling Entertainment

WWE’s Q3 2020 results provide a fascinating insight into how a live event-focused entertainment business has successfully navigated a global pandemic. In its financials for the quarter , WWE saw a 19% revenue increase year-on-year (YoY), with Q3 2020 revenue at $221.

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The Premier League going pay-per-view means a sucker-punch for sports fans

Cover image for The Premier League going pay-per-view means a sucker-punch for sports fans

Alistair Taylor

15 Oct 2020

English Premier League

English Premier League (EPL) clubs have agreed an ‘interim solution’ to allow fans to continue watching their teams live. EPL fixtures not selected for broadcast in October will be available to fans on a pay-per-view (PPV) basis.

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German Bundesliga faces 20% decline in value for its international rights

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Alistair Taylor

1 Oct 2020

German business publisher Sponsors has announced the German Football League (DFL) is facing a 20% decline in the total value of its overseas’ broadcast rights for the 2020/21 campaign. This is down from the €250 million ($292 million USD) that Bundesliga International (the league’s international sales operation) generated last year.

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TwitchSports: Amazon throws sports into the starting line-up

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Alistair Taylor

29 Jul 2020

Amazon-owned Twitch is no newcomer to sports. However, in a deliberate move to double down, Amazon has conceded that it needs to improve the discoverability of live sporting events for its platform users – so, as of last Wednesday, ‘Sports’ has become a standalone category with the return of Twitch.

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Reach for the win: BT Sport to air UEFA Champions League final on YouTube

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Alistair Taylor

23 Jul 2020

Media & Marketing

UK pay-TV incumbent BT Sport has announced it will air this year’s (COVID-delayed) UEFA Champions League (UCL) final free-to-air (FTA) on Google-owned YouTube. YouTube’s head of sport in EMEA, Tomos Grace confirmed the move with SportsPro Media :“BT Sport have been amazing partners for YouTube and we’re very privileged to be working with them.

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NBCUniversal hopes to draw level with Premier League move

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Alistair Taylor

15 Jul 2020

With Comcast’s NBCUniversal-owned Peacock launching today (July 15th), sports fans will be excited ahead of NBCU’s repositioning of its English Premier League (EPL) rights, giving paying subscribers access to 175 fixtures for the 2020/2021 season on its over-the-top (OTT) streaming service.

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Innovation via Free-to-air Highlights Missed Opportunity to date for the EPL

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Alistair Taylor

24 Jun 2020

Sporting rights

Following live sports’ hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, the English Premier League (EPL) saw two of the top three most-watched matches in league history occur last weekend. The previous record of 4.

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Bain Capital Fashions Itself Goal-Scoring Opportunity with Tabled Serie A Offer

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Alistair Taylor

16 Jun 2020

Italian football league Serie A is attracting suitors for an equity share, following a €3 billion ($3.4 billion) ‘tentative offer’ made by Bain Capital for 25% of the league. This opened up competition with equity rival CVC Capital Partners, which offered €2.

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Premier League Acknowledges Priorities Have Changed During Lockdown

Cover image for Premier League Acknowledges Priorities Have Changed During Lockdown

Alistair Taylor

11 Jun 2020

artificial crowd noise

The English Premier League (EPL) is set to return to screens next Wednesday, over three months since the last fixture graced our screens. Considering the pandemic enforced-postponement has deprived sports fans of any live content since early March, the return of the EPL is big news for sports – even if the viewing spectacle is going to be inherently different.

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Move Over Mickey, The NBA is Set to Become Disney World’s Star Attraction

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Alistair Taylor

27 May 2020

Australian Rules Football

COVID-19 forced sports leagues to think outside the box for restarting live sports. The UFC wanted to rent a private island , the NRL to ferry players to and from games, and the WWE performed to empty arenas .

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Bundesliga Offers Reality Check for What to Expect of Sport Post-COVID-19

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Alistair Taylor

21 May 2020

Football (via the Bundesliga) finally returned to screens last weekend, not only serving starved sports fans with content during lockdown, but more importantly demonstrated what we can expect live football to look like in the coming months.

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Does Virgin Media Plus O2 Equal A New UK Communications Major?

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Tim Mulligan

6 May 2020

Liberty Global which is the parent company of Virgin Media, is in talks with Telefonica subsidiary O2 about combining the two businesses together to create a new UK challenger to BT. Virgin Media is the second largest pay-TV operator in the UK with four million video subscribers and 5.

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Peacock Goes for Gold

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Alistair Taylor

23 Jan 2020

On the 16 th of January , Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal) unveiled further details of its direct to consumer (D2C) proposition, Peacock. Peacock is set to debut on the 15 th of April exclusively for Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers, before being rolled out nationally across the US on July 15 th .

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‘If You Ain’t First, You’re Last’: Revenue-Over-Reach Argument Not Refuted for F1

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Alistair Taylor

9 Jan 2020

audience viewership

2019 audience figures for Formula One (F1) provide the latest example of a rights holder opting for short-term revenue optimisation over long-term strategic growth, to the detriment of its viewing audience.

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Amazon One - Family Christmas Nil

Alistair Taylor

18 Dec 2019

addressable audience

AFC Bournemouth

ageing audience

Ever since the English Premier League (EPL) awarded rights to tech major Amazon in June 2018, the excitement for December 2019 and how Amazon’s live stream delivery would pan out has been palpable. The EPL has long prioritised revenue over reach when entertaining rights bids, but this legacy approach is approaching an inflection point; its addressable audience is ageing, increasing the importance of striking a distribution deal with a digital outlet in order to target younger demographics.

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Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) December 9th 2019

Cover image for Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) December 9th 2019

Mark Mulligan

9 Dec 2019

Go east: Universal Music launched Red Records, an Asian repertoire joint venture label with AirAsia Group. With Western repertoire accounting for around only a third of all streams in Asian markets, UMG needs local bets to benefit from the Asian opportunity.

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Could a Recession Change the Tide for Sports Rights Allocation?

Cover image for Could a Recession Change the Tide for Sports Rights Allocation?

Alistair Taylor

24 Sep 2019

additive services

all-encompassing offering

Revenue remains rights holder’s priority qualifier for allocating rights. However, with an impending recession, we are likely nearing an inflection point whereby rights holders may start to look towards prioritising reach over revenue.

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Demographic cliff: Is gaming sports’ biggest problem?

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Alistair Taylor

14 Aug 2019

daily active usage

Is the peaking attention economy the underlying cause for the decline in sports consumption from the younger demographic, or is it the mediums through which rights holders are distributing sports content ? MIDiA argues… both.

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