Discovery could hijack DAZNs BT purchase

It’s Macklin.

 

Thing is, with BT being a public company, any signed contract would legally have to be reported to the London Stock Exchange.

It could well be "all but agreed" however this news has come out for one reason or another. One of the three sides has probably leaked this news to the Telegraph.

BT - maybe getting frustrated with parts of DAZN's bid, so are talking up Discovery
DAZN - seems unlikely they'd publicly out (or even know about) another bidder. But they might be frustrated with BT's attempts to sell the channels but still guarantee access to BT phone/broadband customers (having cake and eating it)
Discovery - get impetus behind their bid, remind BT publicly that there's more than one player in the house

Time will tell.

I do notice that in Germany, Eurosport / Discovery sub-licensed content to DAZN, so their bid might also have another angle to it too.

FWIW, I hope DAZN do get it, and really go all out to hoover up all of Sky's rights as they become available.

 

When will people stop supporting broadcasters like they are football sides. They are businesses. They aren't involved for the good of the fans

 

Not sure which part of my comment implied this, but if it makes you feel better to think it did then fair enough.

 

Can I ask why you hope this happens? From a customer standpoint unless it's all cheaper, which it won't be then i dont really see why it matters who has the content. Infact short to medium term it will cost the customer more.

 

Yep fair question.

I really dislike any company that holds me to a long term contract for a service where my demand may change.

For this reason, I really dislike the way the cable/satellite TV industry holds consumers to contracts and 'bundle' services they possibly don't want in order to get the best deals. Hands up who has a landline gathering dust with their Sky / Virgin / BT contract?

Sky, Virgin and BT are all complicit in this, as well as the incumbent channel suppliers like Eurosport.

For me, what this boils down to, in effect, is that I'm stuck paying for Sky Sports / BT Sport during the summer months when I barely tune in due to lack of football.

Then when my contract's up I basically have to haggle with them to try and get a deal, and the day of the week / time of the month I make that call to them will affect what deal I get.

I equally hate the model of them charging for an extra box if I actually want to watch that service in more than one room. Sure, there's Sky Go / Virgin Go, but you can't cast that to a TV.

When I see the offering DAZN offer in Italy, Germany and Japan, I want that service. Opt in and out on a monthly basis when there's good stuff on - it takes about four clicks. I can put it on any device I want - TV, laptop, tablet, phone with minimal restrictions, cast it to TV from them etc.

I don't think I'm the only one who wants an offering like this - just look at your local Facebook marketplace for Fire sticks with 'special software'.

There needs to be a legal alternative to this, with the rights to match. DAZN's the best bet right now, but if another comes that looks better you bet I'll jump on that horse instead.

Just as Netflix > Sky Movies, I want DAZN or something like it to > Sky Sports.

 

Exactly. A month or two ago when the DAZN/BT rumours started a guy on another forum claimed he had inside knowledge that the deal was done back then. Obviously bollocks.