Sport BT Sports to join Discovery

[Northstandboy]

So I wonder how Discovery will charge for this?

Could we see EPL and CL football on Eurosport? Or will they continue with a premium sports channel, like Discovery Sport?

Sky already lets customer access Discovery+ at no extra cost.

The Story:

BT Group has entered exclusive discussions with Discovery to create a new sport and entertainment offering for the UK.

The business will be a 50/50 joint venture, combining Discovery’s Eurosport service in the UK and Ireland with BT Sport.

The proposed venture would have a combined range of premium sport rights, including the Olympic Games, Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, cycling Grand Tours, tennis Grand Slams, the winter sports World Cup season and Premiership Rugby.

It will be “committed to retaining BT Sport’s existing major sports broadcast rights”, while BT Sport customers will get access to Discovery’s sport and wider entertainment content, including the Discovery+ app.

BT Group is aiming to conclude the discussions with Discovery, Inc. over the next month, with the new company becoming operational later this year.

BT Consumer chief executive Marc Allera said: “The proposed joint venture with Discovery, Inc. would create an exciting new sports broadcasting entity for the UK and would act as a perfect home for our BT Sport business. With a shared ambition for growth, as well as the combination of our world class sports assets along with Discovery’s premium sports and entertainment content, our customers will benefit from even more content in more places.”

JB Perrette, president & chief executive of Discovery Streaming & International, added: “We are excited about this opportunity with BT Group to offer consumers a stronger and simplified combined sport offering in the UK and Ireland, and, more broadly, to advance our strategy of bringing sports and entertainment to more consumers on the platform of their choice. We are aligned with BT Group on a shared vision to maximise the value and appeal of our respective UK sport assets, and we look forward to concluding a deal in the coming weeks.”

The news follows widespread speculation that DAZN would secure a deal to buy BT Sport, but it issued a statement this morning (3 February) indicating that the potential deal had become “uneconomical”.

Broadcast first reported Discovery’s ambition to launch a joint venture with BT Sport in December.

 

[horseman]

Never been aware of "Discovery +" I am not a S*y or BT subscriber but is Eurosport not on their platform anyway?

Comes across as another scheme to extract further monies from the consumer for content that is pretty much already there

S*y BT Amazon already have pretty much every Sport covered don't they?

 

[Coffin dodger]

Quest who do the EFL show is part of the Discovery group of channels

 

[Essexyellows]

Meh. We have BT Sport as part of our broadband package.

What this means I have no idea nor care very much except we won`t pay extra for it and would expect a reduction if it goes.

 

[horseman]

Meh. We have BT Sport as part of our broadband package.

What this means I have no idea nor care very much except we won`t pay extra for it and would expect a reduction if it goes.

You're in for a shock there mate me thinks, when the takeover by Dazn was first muted BT said they were dropping their Sport to concentrate on Home Broadband and allow it to be easily accessed by all areas of society.

This new merger/venture will just mean a new company separate from the phone and Broadband. ie that'l be another £££££££ thank you sir/madam

 

[Essexyellows]

You're in for a shock there mate me thinks, when the takeover by Dazn was first muted BT said they were dropping their Sport to concentrate on Home Broadband and allow it to be easily accessed by all areas of society.

This new merger/venture will just mean a new company separate from the phone and Broadband. ie that'l be another £££££££ thank you sir/madam

Ah well.
Still pretty cheap without BT Sport which we only watch about once or twice a month.

 

[Northstandboy]

Ah well.
Still pretty cheap without BT Sport which we only watch about once or twice a month.

Really?

I find BT one of the more expensive ISP's!

What do you pay?

 

[werthersoriginal]

Meh. We have BT Sport as part of our broadband package.

What this means I have no idea nor care very much except we won`t pay extra for it and would expect a reduction if it goes.

I'm not really bothered about a lot of football on TV, I like MOTD and occasionally watch the EFL on Quest. Have pretty much forgotten about the CL now its gone off to some pay channel

 

[mooro]

We liked the look of discovery+ a while back but couldn't access it via the nowtv stick ( unlike all the other streaming services (bbcplayer, itvhub, UKTV+, prime etc).
If this means we can then great though not sure what we are missing out on on bt sports

 

[Essexyellows]

Really?

I find BT one of the more expensive ISP's!

What do you pay?

£28 a month for a phone line, Fibre 100 or whatever its called, and the BT Player thing on the telly with the 2 sports channels.
They tried putting it up by £10 a month about a year ago so we said we were leaving and got a 36 month contract out of them.
Neighbours are with Virgin and seem to have endless problems but are on the same physical cable/exchange network as us.

 

[werthersoriginal]

£28 a month for a phone line, Fibre 100 or whatever its called, and the BT Player thing on the telly with the 2 sports channels.
They tried putting it up by £10 a month about a year ago so we said we were leaving and got a 36 month contract out of them.
Neighbours are with Virgin and seem to have endless problems but are on the same physical cable/exchange network as us.

We're with Zen, originally cos my cousin worked for them. Bit more expensive I think but you can phone them up and a real person in UK answers quickly.