Blog: rights holders - Page 2

On July 18 th , Google-owned YouTube livestreamed the first of its exclusive Major League Baseball (MLB) matches, acquired through a partnership announced with the MLB at the end of April 2019 . YouTube’s first exclusive live game distribution deal with the MLB covers 13 games during the second half of the MLB’s 2019 regular season.

With both the ICC Cricket World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup approaching their climaxes, the stark difference in audience engagement raises the question, is pay-TV killing off niche sports? Deciding the medium through which to distribute live sports has never been more crucial.

The sports rights landscape has changed fundamentally with the emergence of streaming subscription video on demand (SVOD) services. Digital and broadcast rights used to be separate deals entirely, but now the lines are blurred, and competition is heating up for exclusive coverage of the most sought-after sporting rights.

Cord cutting and “the attention economy” are the landscaping trends reshaping everything video in 2019, and sports television – despite its reliably existent fanbase – is no exception. New sports proposition streaming video on demand (SVOD) entrants face hefty competition on all sides, from regionally established SVOD services with more varied offerings to tech majors waiting in the wings to buy up the biggest rights before moving onto the scene.

DAZN, the sports-centric streaming service which made headlines in 2018 with several high-profile rights acquisitions , and according to documents seen by SportsPro Media , has managed to dramatically reduce its debt burden by 93% in the year up to 2018.

Eleven Sports announced last week it had successfully agreed long-term distribution agreements with all four TV operators in Portugal – Altice, NOS, Nowo and Vodafone. Achieving this agreement puts Eleven Sports on TV platforms across 3.

Having grown its portfolio for premium international and domestic sporting rights, DAZN is now starting to graduate from a disruptor into an established part of the landscape. Emphasised by its latest plan, aiming to snap up domestic Bundesliga rights in Germany for 2021–2025 (provided the terms are economically viable for the SVOD service), and thus significantly upgrade its German market value proposition.

German broadcaster Sport1 is replacing its US sport focused channel for the very first German-speaking esports channel. Sport1 announced last week that the channel dubbed eSports1 will launch in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on January 24th 2019, replacing Sport1 US.

The value of Rugby has suffered another major blow in what has already been a tumultuous year financially for the sport. The asking price for the Six Nations title sponsorship has plunged 64% to just £6 million ($7.

Two weeks ago , the NFL warned subscription video on demand (SVOD) services to up their content delivery game if they are to be taken seriously when bidding for premium rights. It must therefore come as good news for streaming services as it appears the BBC may have potentially broken through the latency problem facing streamers of live sporting events.

As rights holders and tech majors continue to experiment with streaming video on demand (SVOD) services as a way to broadcast sports content, questions are being raised about the ability of streaming platforms to reliably deliver high-demand premium sports events to paying sports fans.