📲 Sky Sports Launch New Streaming App to 23m Customers

SkySports are launching a streaming service called Sky Sports+.

In the world of digital sports consumption it’s not a new concept, however it’s a very big move for Sky themselves.

If you are located in the UK you will be familiar with Sky Go. This is an app which mirrors what is currently being broadcast on television for Sky customers.

Sky Sports+ however, is different.

There will be alot of content on there that WON’T be being broadcast on television.

Consider tennis as an example. There will be a match being shown on Sky Sports Main Event, but there will now be several other matches being shown on Sky Sports+ that you can watch simulatenously.

Similarly, in August for the first gameday of the Football League season Sky will broadcast EVERY match from the Championship, League 1 and League 2 at the same time.

As fans this is great, we’ve never had choice like this before. However, it raises three thoughts in my mind.

Thought 1: Will Sky raise prices to fund this?

If Sky are going to show every match on Gameweek 1 of the football league they will need a LOT of infrastructure. More camera crews, more commentators, more content coverage. It’s a big operational lift.

If you’re a Sky Sports customer you will know already that prices are already steep. Will they go up?

Thought 2: Is this all a push for more subscribers?

In 2022, Comcast revealed their financial accounts showing Sky had 22.7m customers!

Sky is not just a UK product. There is a healthy presence in Italy, Germany and Austria but that is a LOT of people.

Those subscribers need constant value and Sky must keep up to stave off losing market share to Paramount+, DAZN, Netflix and other services vying for everyones attention. Having the rights is one way, but technology is another.

Thought 3: Does this stop the Premier League building their own app?

There has always been a long question over whether the Premier League will break away from Sky and build their own standalone DTC service. If they did that, it would have major ramifications for revenue distribution to our clubs, the fan experience for travellers and consumers at home and the success of Sky as we know it.

Here’s what I think is happening:

• Sky need to deliver more value to subscribers in a heavy inflationary economy

• Sky also need to do everything in their power to prevent the breakaway from happening

• The Premier League are scared to do it as it is a BIG step to take and also a significant operational task

What you then end up with is Sky Sports+ which acts as the PERFECT way for everyone to get what they need.

Sky show loyalty to the Premier League in its commitment to show their product. Sky deliver significant improvements in value to paying customers. In addition, the Premier League and the EFL get to test the reception from consumers without having to build anything themselves.

It wouldn’t surprise me if at the next round of PL rights negotiations they take ownership in Sky Sports+ and work together strategically to scale it to newer heights.

We recently saw this in the NBA too as Adam Silver was exploring ESPN owning a stake in the NBA!

Fascinating stuff. Let’s see if Sky can roll out the new app successfully. Will be a tragedy if it’s buggy or poorly marketed.

Speaking of Sky I’ll leave you this week with a fascinating excerpt from the Sky Sports Cricket Pod from Nasser Hussein and Michael Atherton.

From 11:11 they speak for a four minutes on how precarious finances are at the domestic level in county cricket. They cover:

• How Gloucestershire lost £1.25m as a business

• The value and importance of The Hundred to the future of English Cricket

• Why private investment in the game is a necessity and who it will come from

• + more

As we get through this packed summer of sport I will do a breakdown of where English cricket is and how fragile the foundations are so consider this a sneak peak!

Thank you to all the new joiners here too.

See you next week.