Category: Sport
-
ESPN, Charter, The Cable Bundle and the Future
I have been fascinated by the recently resolved standoff in the US TV industry between the second biggest cable provider in the country, Charter Communications, and one of the biggest TV providers, Disney. Over the US Open tennis final at the weekend, and the start of the opening weekend of the new NFL season, millions…
-
Premier League UK TV Rights
There’s a good piece in the FT from earlier this week (£) that examines the forthcoming kick-off the next set of UK Premier League TV rights. The current set of rights agreements expire at the end of the 2024/5 season, and with the 2023/4 season just getting underway, it means that the time is right…
-
IPL TV and Streaming Rights
Long-time readers will know that I have a deep fascination with sports rights, the value attached to them and the value generated by the companies that buy them. Sports bodies have worked out the most efficient ways to maximise those rights, getting big media giants to spend freely every few years. The Indian Premier League…
-
Losing 56 kg / 9 stone / 124 lbs Over a Year
At the end of 2020, I wrote a blog post entitled “Making the Most of 2020” in which I detailed my diet and fitness regime. This post goes into significantly more detail, revisiting some of what I wrote before, and expanding on it. I should also make clear that I am not a medical practitioner…
-
The Olympics on TV in the UK
The 2012 London Olympics were perhaps the high point for UK viewers who wanted to watch the Olympic Games. For a home event, the BBC pulled out all the stops with coverage across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three (then still on broadcast). There was a vast array of other broadcasts too, with up…
-
Wimbledon 2021
It’s been an awfully long time since I last attended an actual in-person sporting event, so it was great to be able to get a ticket to Wimbledon this year. Prior to the pandemic Wimbledon had finally gone digital in their ticket allocation. Previously, to enter the public ballot, you had to send away for…
-
Who Pays For the Super League?
Unless you’ve been asleep, you will know that, at time of writing, 12 named football clubs have agreed to join something called the European Super League. Another three teams are as yet unnamed. Obviously the whole thing is a sporting farrago, which guarantees the founder members permanent places in this league regardless of how well…
-
Super Bowl Technical Shortcomings
While it’s a few hours too early to know how many millions of Americans watched this year’s Super Bowl, it’ll certainly be the biggest audience of the year, being the major television event. Even with the Tokyo Olympics still scheduled for this summer, there won’t be as many people watching at one time as there…
-
When Should Athletes Get The Vaccine?
Note: This piece expands a little on a Twitter thread that I published earlier today. Today it was reported that the UAE Team Emirates cycling team had all received the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine while they attended an Abu Dhabi winter training camp. The team counts among its members, the 22 year-old Tour de France…
-
The Premier League in an SVOD World – Running the Numbers
This week, Amazon Prime in the UK has begun the first of its streaming-only games offered to Prime subscribers. You will recall that during the last UK round of Premier League TV rights, a package comprising of the entirety of one mid-week “matchday” and all the Boxing Day games was offered. In the end Amazon…
-
Amazon Prime Premier League Fixtures – Redux
I’ve repeatedly tried to explain why the Premier League was foolish to package rights to every fixture across two of their Match Days as a single TV package when they sold their latest UK TV rights last year. Amazon Prime ended up buying those packages after neither Sky nor BT felt they were worth buying.…
-
Champagne Superova: Sport and TV
Sunday was an incredible day for sport. Personally, I spent quite a lot of time flicking between ITV4 and Eurosport’s coverage of Stage 9 of the Tour de France, with South Africa’s Daryl Impey winning from a breakaway on France’s national day. But I was also watching quite a lot of cricket – especially early…
-
Sports TV: UK v US
Yesterday evening, UK time, the NFL championship games took place, deciding which teams will contest the Super Bowl. I have an on/off relationship with the NFL – but will flip over to catch a bit every now and then. So last night, when I wasn’t watching Les Miserables on BBC1, I caught a bit of these games…