WWE's role in Sky Sports rebranding

[Steveweiser]

Sky Sports will be ditching its numbered channels (1 through 5) within the next couple of months, based both on the success of Sky Sports F1 (the channel for its Formula One motor racing coverage), and falling subscriber numbers due to football over-saturation and alternative services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. There will now be two Sky Sports football channels (rumoured to be one for the Premier League and another one for all its other rights), a channel for cricket and a channel for golf, proving that Sky's main priorities are football, cricket, golf and Formula One.

The rest of Sky's sports rights, including the WWE, rugby union, rugby league, tennis and darts, plus whatever free boxing it has, will be crammed onto a new channel called Sky Sports Arena. This goes to show that Sky don't consider WWE with the same high regard it used to - the whole scenario with the launch of the WWE Network in the UK is evidence to that. Considering that the only property that's been with Sky longer than WWE is The Simpsons, it's a shame where the relationship has gone to. Once the rights come up in the next year or so, I could see BT Sport making a play, though they're not in the greatest of health themselves after overpaying for the Champions League and having to lay off quite a few studio staff. The future of WWE in the UK TV-wise is very interesting...

www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket?CMP=share_btn_tw

[KobashiChop]

LOL at them claiming it's oversaturation of football.


Your product is way too expensive for what it is.

[auph10imitated]

I dont think I've watched WWE on Sky Sports since about 2002

[The Dark Order Inferno]

I could see the WWE launching a proper (Not just a title defended on random shows) UK exclusive brand to try and increase their value when their contract is up for renewal, one with actual programming and live events. While Sky need filler for their sports packages to keep people subscribed while football is on break for the summer, the WWE are getting awfully expensive and the benefits for sky are greatly diminished since the network launch.

[eJm]

I mean, considering that ridiculous power play they did before the launch of the Network and the fact the audience hasn't exactly grown in a while for their coverage, I can't exactly blame Sky Sports here for not thinking of them the same way.

You have to remember, they tried to put the network for about £6 a month all for the sake of calling Sky's bluff concerning their contract. Networks like that remember that stuff. Ask Destination America.

[Steveweiser]

Jun 28, 2017 7:33:54 GMT -5 KobashiChop said:

LOL at them claiming it's oversaturation of football.


Your product is way too expensive for what it is.

It kind of is - the Premier League keeps increasing the amount of games it offers up to networks in order to drive up the price, leading to Sky having to show games like Hull vs. Sunderland and Stoke vs. Middlesbrough which the country at large don't want to watch. It's moving more towards a Big Six market (Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester(s) City and United), and pundits predict that in the near future, those six will look for their own deals to give them a larger share of TV revenue instead of having to split it equally with the other 14 teams. Sky weren't helped by not having "large market teams" like Aston Villa and Newcastle United available to them in Premier League games last season (Newcastle are back this year though).

[mrbananagrabber]

So, what, does that mean we can ditch the other channels and just pay less for Sky Sports Arena? That can't be a bad thing.

[raymondcky18]

Jun 28, 2017 18:59:44 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

So, what, does that mean we can ditch the other channels and just pay less for Sky Sports Arena? That can't be a bad thing.

We all know that won't be a option.

When I was setting up my sky account a few months ago I was forced to pay for children's channel because I wanted to have the discovery channels.

[Deleted]

WWE would be better served securing a weekly slot on a terrestrial channel, even if it's one hour of heavily edited content and then streaming Raw and SD live in the UK on the Network. Being in a ridiculously expensive, premium channel must severely hamper it in the UK in terms of reaching a new, younger audience.

Getting your parents to pay £9.99 a month to watch WWE is a much easier sell than a £80 per month television package.

[Gerard Gerard]

Jun 29, 2017 3:09:28 GMT -5 @thehairydrunk said:

WWE would be better served securing a weekly slot on a terrestrial channel, even if it's one hour of heavily edited content and then streaming Raw and SD live in the UK on the Network. Being in a ridiculously expensive, premium channel must severely hamper it in the UK in terms of reaching a new, younger audience.

Getting your parents to pay £9.99 a month to watch WWE is a much easier sell than a £80 per month television package.

I take it SKY 1 was never available on basic cable in the UK like it was in Ireland? I see they still do a magazine show on Sundays and can recall these kinda things, like Livewire, were instrumental in getting me and all my friends to watch WWF as a kid.

[Jiren]

Over saturation of football my arse, It's a f***ing ripoff is why it has low subscribers.

RAW/SD on Network in the UK would be great, I can watch it in bed and if it's dull as shit I can fall asleep with no worries

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Jun 29, 2017 5:05:57 GMT -5 Gerard Gerard said:

Jun 29, 2017 3:09:28 GMT -5 @thehairydrunk said:

WWE would be better served securing a weekly slot on a terrestrial channel, even if it's one hour of heavily edited content and then streaming Raw and SD live in the UK on the Network. Being in a ridiculously expensive, premium channel must severely hamper it in the UK in terms of reaching a new, younger audience.

Getting your parents to pay £9.99 a month to watch WWE is a much easier sell than a £80 per month television package.

I take it SKY 1 was never available on basic cable in the UK like it was in Ireland? I see they still do a magazine show on Sundays and can recall these kinda things, like Livewire, were instrumental in getting me and all my friends to watch WWF as a kid.

It is available on basic, but it's not the same as having actual Raw and Smackdown available without the sports fee.

[Hit Girl]

Sky are realising that they spend shitloads of money on sports that just don't get that many viewers. Even the Premier League for example. They might get viewers for matches involving Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal, but no one is watching matches between the rest of the league. I doubt they get much of an audience for shit like West Brom vs Stoke. The money the Premier League gets from their TV deals has hurt football. It's concentrated money at the top and the rest of the league system has suffered for it. The same thing applies for the Champions League which is an interminable bore now, with the same clubs getting to the final stages every damn year. As for WWE, they need to get off Sky. Sky don't even promote WWE programming and putting all PPV's on Sky Box Office has probably shrunk the audience even more. We used to get them on the normal Sky Sports channels.

[mrbananagrabber]

Jun 28, 2017 23:22:59 GMT -5 raymondcky18 said:

Jun 28, 2017 18:59:44 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

So, what, does that mean we can ditch the other channels and just pay less for Sky Sports Arena? That can't be a bad thing.

We all know that won't be a option.

When I was setting up my sky account a few months ago I was forced to pay for children's channel because I wanted to have the discovery channels.

I read their "cheapest sports option" will be £18 a month. Wouldn't that be the channel for all the "other" sports?

[Clint Bobski]

I'm just disgruntled at the lack of love for Stoke on this thread...

[Nickybojelais]

There should still be plenty of room for WWE on Sky Sports.

They have Sky Sports Arena & Sky Sports Mix. Also it's rumoured that Sky will be losing some of their tennis and non-international rugby union rights soon, so that will free up some more space for WWE programming to continue.

[Peeetah]

Jun 29, 2017 19:16:39 GMT -5 Nickybojelais said:

There should still be plenty of room for WWE on Sky Sports.

They have Sky Sports Arena & Sky Sports Mix. Also it's rumoured that Sky will be losing some of their tennis and non-international rugby union rights soon, so that will free up some more space for WWE programming to continue.

The VAST majority of Sky is filler not having room for WWE is never going to be a problem. How often does the world need to see Emile Heskey's first 100 premier league goals?

[Nickybojelais]

Jun 29, 2017 19:45:07 GMT -5 Peeetah said:

Jun 29, 2017 19:16:39 GMT -5 Nickybojelais said:

There should still be plenty of room for WWE on Sky Sports.

They have Sky Sports Arena & Sky Sports Mix. Also it's rumoured that Sky will be losing some of their tennis and non-international rugby union rights soon, so that will free up some more space for WWE programming to continue.

The VAST majority of Sky is filler not having room for WWE is never going to be a problem. How often does the world need to see Emile Heskey's first 100 premier league goals?

Very true. I find that Sky is great on weekends (particularly during the football season), but during the week their offerings are quite bare.
In fact Sky's lack of content got so bad for me that I had to add BT Sport just to give me some live sport to watch.

[Peeetah]

Jun 29, 2017 20:36:38 GMT -5 Nickybojelais said:

Jun 29, 2017 19:45:07 GMT -5 Peeetah said:

The VAST majority of Sky is filler not having room for WWE is never going to be a problem. How often does the world need to see Emile Heskey's first 100 premier league goals?

Very true. I find that Sky is great on weekends (particularly during the football season), but during the week their offerings are quite bare.
In fact Sky's lack of content got so bad for me that I had to add BT Sport just to give me some live sport to watch.

Yeah I couldn't live without soccer Saturday haha, I'm so starved of sport right now I'm watching the euro U21s which is actually surprisingly entertaining.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

There'll be rumblings of WWE UK getting a BT deal or worse, the WOS slot on ITV around the time the contract is up for renewal, even if there's no truth to it, it'll be the talk on wrestling boards and that will likely be enough to get Sky to panic and overpay for another extension.