Sports Extra (TNT/Premier)

The former eir Sport studio is owned by Premier Sports and, since the demise of eir, has appeared on Premier Sports programmes - that said, they tended to present Pro14 coverage from the ground.

As for the team, I think it’s the same as previous seasons, including Stephen Ferris and Andrew Trimble, not sure if they are bringing any Leinster/Munster/Connacht faces.

They charge high because they pay high for FAPL rights. I think in BT’s case though, they had entered the market with a particular proposition (free sports with broadband subs) which simply proved unsustainable and given the inflation in Premier League rights (albeit paused, for the moment, due to Covid) was never likely to be sustainable. Once they had broken the sport-broadband link the rationale for BT to own BT Sport simply no longer was there. It’s a similar story for eir Sport. Unlike eir Sport, BT Sport might have a future as a standalone broadcaster or under another roof. Not sure if DAZN are that future though, the merged offering would likely have to be pitched at a much higher price than DAZN typically charge.

A number of reports today that DAZN are in advanced talks now about buying BT Sport, stemming from an FT article this morning. So it looks like things are serious on the DAZN front, which is a very interesting one. I’d expect a merged DAZN-BT Sport to want to retail directly in this market and exit the wholesale agreement with Sky (which is up at the end of this season anyway) at the earliest possible opportunity, that could in turn have knock on effects for Premier Sports.

That’s exactly what they are doing.

(Or rather, trying to do, they need to get someone to take them off their hands which is proving to be a protracted process)

Expect a BT/DAZN combo to be closer to the existing BT Sport price than the DAZN one.

Connor Morris (who has done a lot of work over the years for the various incarnations of Setanta) and Alan Quinlan are on the call for Munster v Sharks, Ryle Nugent and Stephen Ferris will commentate on Leinster v Blue Bulls, and Graham Little, Bernard Jackson, and Bob Skinstad in the studio for the double header. So it seems there’ll be quite a bit of the eir Sport influence, which should surprise no one really.

Edit: the old eir Sport studio is in use this evening too.

BT Group plc H1 results release this morning makes only a passing mention that discussions on the future of BT Sport are still ongoing. Quite clearly a bit of a way to go before a deal is done then.