Sky and BT are “very likely” to face competition from Amazon in the new Premier League rights auction, according to a leading analyst.
Richard Broughton of Ampere Analysis says a source has told him that the parcel delivery to streaming business will at least table a bid.
Ampere has also been looking into what Amazon might be able to sustain. “Based on the current Prime business model, we believe they could justify bidding for 1-2 EPL packages – effectively using the cost of the Prime subscription, plus incremental retail product sales to offset the costs. Any more than two packages becomes increasingly difficult to justify on the current Prime model.” Broughton told Broadband TV News that while it wasn’t impossible for Amazon to bid for more, additional pricing options would be required for them to do so or they would be taking a long-term bet in doing so.
200 matches will be available for broadcast from the start of the 2019/20 season.
Under the current £5.136 billion rights deal Sky screens the Saturday lunchtime and Sunday afternoon matches, along with Monday nights and occasional Friday evening kick-offs totalling 126 matches each season, while BT has Saturday teatime and midweek rights 42 matches each season.
Of particular interest to Amazon Package F (One Bank Holiday and one midweek fixture programme) and Package G (Two midweek fixture programmes) both feature 20 matches.
Broughton says he believes Sky and BT are still very much the frontrunners with the pre-Christmas resale deal between the two taking the edge off the completion between the two rivals. “That makes it more likely that a third party would take a small number of packages; however, given the economics of online streaming players, and the sheer cost of the rights, I believe it is fairly unlikely that Sky/BT would lose out completely.”
