BT Sport Secure 20 Extra Premier League TV Footy Matches for £90m

Earlier this year BT splashed £295m per season to secure the rights to show 32 Premier League matches on BTSport UK for a further three years from the 2019/20 season (here). Today the broadband ISP and pay TV provider has added 20 additional matches to that total by spending another £90m (total cost of £975m).

BT claims that they have “remained financially disciplined” during the bidding process for the new rights and expect to be in a “strong position” to make a return on their investment through “subscription, wholesale, commercial and advertising revenues.”

The operator has also recently agreed a multi-year deal to offer Sky’s NOW TV video streaming service, which includes Sky Sports TV content, from early 2019. Meanwhile BT TV customers will be able to access all of the action on BTSport from £6.00 a month extra (the channels are available via BT TV, the BT Sport App, to EE customers, on the Sky platform and to Virgin Media customers).

Andy Haworth, MD for BT Consumer Content and Strategy, said:

“We’re delighted to be able to offer our customers even more Premier League matches and to create exciting mid-week nights of top flight Premier League football action.

The fantastic sport our customers can view continues to grow. Today’s Premier League announcement, and the recent deal with NOW TV, means BT TV customers will have access to all of the best exclusively live sporting action in the UK. We look forward to continuing as a partner of the Premier League and showcasing the most exciting league in the world.”

BT adds that their audience figures for BTSport continue to grow, with average viewing up 17% at the end of this football season plus a record breaking 8.5 million people watched the UEFA Champions League Final this year across TV and digital platforms (mind you, the latter was broadcast for free). On the flip side their most recent financial results showed a sharp -16,000 quarterly decline in the BT TV customer base (here).

The news will no doubt do little to dampen complaints from some quarters, not least over the ever increasing price of being able to access and view all of this content. At the same time others continue to suggest that BT should be investing their money into rolling out ultrafast broadband networks to even more of the UK, although Openreach are today a “legally separate” business from BT’s retail division and have a very different focus.

Elsewhere it’s interesting to note that Amazon has also won the rights to show 20 Premier League matches a season for three years from 2019, which will no doubt support their prime video streaming service against rivals like Netflix. The matches will be available free to members of the service (this costs £79 a year or £7.99 a month and also gives you access to their music streaming service, as well as discounts on deliveries).