TVNZ is expected to acquire the majority of sporting rights held by Spark, after the telco-run streaming service announced it would withdraw from the market next year.Spark’s prized asset, domestic coverage of the New Zealand cricket team, is among the rights to be picked up by the public broadcaster. The matches will continue to be produced for broadcast by Whisper, the UK firm that had produced the content for Spark, and carries out a similar role for West Indies cricket.
TVNZ is currently in discussion with licensing bodies over the transfer of the remaining rights when Spark goes dark on July 1.
Arguably, the greatest beneficiary is Sky Sport [there is no connection to the Comcast-owned Sky] which will again find itself in a quasi-monopoly for live pay-TV sports coverage.
Announcing the move, Spark blamed the increasing cost of sports rights, though the company won’t be the first telco to lose interest in sports content. In the UK, BT Sport is in the process of merging its operations with the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed Eurosport.
Spark is the former Telecom NZ. It launched Spark in 2019 with a portfolio that also included that year’s Rugby World Cup.