Beware the big bad Sky
The courts have ruled in favour of Karen Murphy, a Landlady from Portsmouth who instead of paying for Sky used an Illegal decoder to show football in her pub. Her argument was that EU law states that goods and services should move freely between EU states.
To give an example anyone from the UK can go abroad and buy a car if they wanted to. They may have to pay one off import tax but it would still end up cheaper. In this case Greek Satellite shows Premier League games cheaper so she should be able to use that instead of SKY.
SKY has the exclusive UK rights to Premier League games. They pay extra so that only they can show Premier League matches in the UK. What she is doing is in breech of these rights by UK law but not by EU law.
What this means is that anyone can now import a decoder and watch more or less the same media for a cheaper price, the price say the Greeks pay for their service. In particular pubs can use this method to show Premier League games much more cheaply at the expense of SKY, despite SKY having exclusive rights.
So cheaper football for everyone and the financial powerhouse SKY gets taken down a peg or two. This can only be a good thing right? WRONG!
The issue here is what SKY does next. Such a potential loss requires attention. David slays Goliath, How will Goliath act? Will he smash the villagers in rage? I see two potential outcomes.
1. SKY decide to pull out of showing live Premier League games. They sue the Premier League for loss of Exclusivity, which they paid a large sum for.
This will hit the Premier League hard. Many have said the Influence SKY has has ruined English Football. It’s become all about the money. Yes it has become all about the money, and while SKY has played its part it is not the only offender. For example SKY has not made Real Madrid and Barcelona such big financial powerhouses.
Take away that money and English Football in general loses out. You cannot say all the money given by SKY goes purely to the big clubs. It goes to the Premier League who are then in charge of distributing it. This includes prize money smaller clubs get for finishing in a certain position and probably covers the costs of Grassroots football.
Even the big clubs will need a billionaire investor to cover the growing cost of Player Salaries. Contrary to popular belief SKY has not invested solely on one team, the money had dramatically improved Services in Football. It has changed the game, and these changes are here to stay.
The point I’m trying to make is how on Earth are English Clubs meant to attract the top players after such a big cut in their earnings? The top players will no doubt go to the foreign leagues where they can earn much more. The EPL won’t be able to compete.
Unless they find a way to cover this cost. Those without a Sugar Daddy will no doubt raise the cost of tickets and Merchandise. The Consumer therefore loses. Ticket attendance will go down in favour of cheap TV, Clubs will start losing Players, and ultimately the EPL will have a drastic collapse in quality. You can forget about an English team winning the Champions League.
Although this is what I think will happen instead of all that…
2. The Premier League will sell SKY the exclusive European rights rather than just the UK.
And we’re back to square one, only now SKY will be even more expensive taking into account additional costs for setting up around Europe. Instead of a UK monopoly they would have a European one. Everyone will pay more and all this has done is draw attention to the dodgy cheaper alternative, and subsequently eliminated it.
SKY is expensive because it pays lots of money for exclusivity, and these costs are reimbursed by Subscribers. Increase the costs for exclusivity, not to mention setting up in the other EU countries, and ultimately consumers will pay the difference.
Similar services in other European countries do not have to pay exclusive rights hence they are cheaper. Change all that and costs in general will only rise and SKY will win anyway.
This technicality that has undermined SKY’s Exclusive rights to the Premier League seems like a Victory now, but it is going to bite us in the arse, just you wait.
To give an example anyone from the UK can go abroad and buy a car if they wanted to. They may have to pay one off import tax but it would still end up cheaper. In this case Greek Satellite shows Premier League games cheaper so she should be able to use that instead of SKY.
SKY has the exclusive UK rights to Premier League games. They pay extra so that only they can show Premier League matches in the UK. What she is doing is in breech of these rights by UK law but not by EU law.
What this means is that anyone can now import a decoder and watch more or less the same media for a cheaper price, the price say the Greeks pay for their service. In particular pubs can use this method to show Premier League games much more cheaply at the expense of SKY, despite SKY having exclusive rights.
So cheaper football for everyone and the financial powerhouse SKY gets taken down a peg or two. This can only be a good thing right? WRONG!
The issue here is what SKY does next. Such a potential loss requires attention. David slays Goliath, How will Goliath act? Will he smash the villagers in rage? I see two potential outcomes.
1. SKY decide to pull out of showing live Premier League games. They sue the Premier League for loss of Exclusivity, which they paid a large sum for.
This will hit the Premier League hard. Many have said the Influence SKY has has ruined English Football. It’s become all about the money. Yes it has become all about the money, and while SKY has played its part it is not the only offender. For example SKY has not made Real Madrid and Barcelona such big financial powerhouses.
Take away that money and English Football in general loses out. You cannot say all the money given by SKY goes purely to the big clubs. It goes to the Premier League who are then in charge of distributing it. This includes prize money smaller clubs get for finishing in a certain position and probably covers the costs of Grassroots football.
Even the big clubs will need a billionaire investor to cover the growing cost of Player Salaries. Contrary to popular belief SKY has not invested solely on one team, the money had dramatically improved Services in Football. It has changed the game, and these changes are here to stay.
The point I’m trying to make is how on Earth are English Clubs meant to attract the top players after such a big cut in their earnings? The top players will no doubt go to the foreign leagues where they can earn much more. The EPL won’t be able to compete.
Unless they find a way to cover this cost. Those without a Sugar Daddy will no doubt raise the cost of tickets and Merchandise. The Consumer therefore loses. Ticket attendance will go down in favour of cheap TV, Clubs will start losing Players, and ultimately the EPL will have a drastic collapse in quality. You can forget about an English team winning the Champions League.
Although this is what I think will happen instead of all that…
2. The Premier League will sell SKY the exclusive European rights rather than just the UK.
And we’re back to square one, only now SKY will be even more expensive taking into account additional costs for setting up around Europe. Instead of a UK monopoly they would have a European one. Everyone will pay more and all this has done is draw attention to the dodgy cheaper alternative, and subsequently eliminated it.
SKY is expensive because it pays lots of money for exclusivity, and these costs are reimbursed by Subscribers. Increase the costs for exclusivity, not to mention setting up in the other EU countries, and ultimately consumers will pay the difference.
Similar services in other European countries do not have to pay exclusive rights hence they are cheaper. Change all that and costs in general will only rise and SKY will win anyway.
This technicality that has undermined SKY’s Exclusive rights to the Premier League seems like a Victory now, but it is going to bite us in the arse, just you wait.
posted by Master hunter at 1:00 pm
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