[Phunkenstein]

Originally Posted by Horizon

The American regulators will never allow that because it would bring two of their big two networks, NBC and CBS, together. Although I guess they could sell one of them, but what would be the point?

A Comcast?WBD makes more sense, especially so in regards to sports rights, because its all about the tech giants now and it has been since Murdoch sold off most of his empire.

Apple, Amazon and Google are serious about sports rights, Mircosoft has yet to show its hand, so a newly enlarged Sky/NBC/WBD may reckon it'll be big enough to compete against Big Tech. But I have always been guided by what Murdoch said when he sold out, and he said he couldn't compete against the tech giants. If he couldn't, neither can any of the other traditional Hollywood/media companies either.

In the States, Apple has already won Major Leaague Soccer rights and baseball rights and I expect Apple to continue bidding for more sports rights in the future. Although, it went head to head with Google over some of the NFL rights currently held by DirectTV, but backed out. Despite Apple's deep pockets, 2 billion dollars a year was too much for them, but not for Google.

Likewise, over recent years, Amazon has been building up significant sports right too. From some NFL rights in the States to UEFA and some premiership rights in the UK. That will just continue.

And finally, bidding for the premier league rights starts this year and Big Tech is going to be heavily invested in that. In this article I am linking below, I found it interesting that eight of the clubs are now 100% American owned.

I have always said the goal is for the Big Tech to bid for global sports rights and so the sports can only be viewed on their respective streamers. It's happening in the States, but at the moment the football rights in the UK are only for UK viewers, but that will change at some point. Paying 10 billion quid a year for some global premierhship rights will seem like small fry in the future, as far as Big Tech is concerned. Sky, Disney, WBD etc cannot compete against that.

https://worldsoccertalk.com/tv/apple...ST-415657.html

I think for the most parts, some of the big tech giants are actually far more prudent than some give them credit for… I think there’s does seem to be an assumption they can just offer anything and take what they want from the table when it’s apparent that isn’t the case… you rightly mention Apple and Sunday Ticket (especially more awkward as reports indicate Apple were asking for things that weren’t even on the table!) and Amazon are being fairly disciplined about things like football (the recent UCL deal in Italy where they just opted to hold onto their one game per round as opposed to some big splashy blow everyone out the water deal) and letting things go like the ATP/WTA… if anything I think Amazon are behaving more like a disciplined broadcaster than a cash rich spender!

I think Apple do want big, global and with everything in rights and I think that might actually be the right move for the likes of MLS who are struggling to scale in their own country let alone the rest of the world as well as other smaller players (who I think will be watching that MLS deal with interest) but I think some of the bigger tier one sports, though they may move more and more inventory to streaming are more inclined to hedge themselves a bit by spreading the wealth either in their home markets or key territories rather than committing themselves to a single partner globally where they may essentially be at the mercy of that one partner. F1 as an example of someone who have been furiously tying up new deals globally with existing partners (even though they may be the one best placed for a big f*** off global deal), NFL keeping their home territory mainly on linear with multiple partners and then that recent DAZN deal to offload Game Pass and even Big Ten college football spreading the wealth amongst US linear (and avoiding Amazon who offered a big number for the game that I believe went to CBS on Saturday afternoons).

I think what the NBA do in the next couple of years with their tv rights is going to be an interesting one to see - I won’t be surprised if they split their US inventory even more but maybe do something a bit more scaled outside of the US.