Most people I know with Sky have a general apathy for the company and would jump ship in an instant. Part of being essentially a monopoly has had NZers paying overs for a while.
It’s a fine balance for Sky as if they didn’t have the NRL their business would suffer, if they lost union too they’d go under overnight. However they don’t have endless money either and would seek to take advantage of being the only bidder, only other real option is something like Watch NRL or similar service cutting out the middle man.
Yep but that sentiment has been tempered a little bit I’ve found.
When Spark won the domestic cricket rights and then various WC rights there was a collective finger to Sky from much of the public.
But as it became apparent we’d have to pay two subscription costs to watch the same amount of content we used to have on Sky alone, coupled with some of Spark’s production and bandwidth challenges, it became a bit like be careful what you wish for.
I personally haven’t followed any domestic cricket since Sky originally lost the rights. Sky’s a pain in the fking ass at times but as a consumer, it’s almost better the devil you know.
And yep agree that given their history of abusing their monopoly, they will absolutely leverage it for any sports rights negotiations.
They’ve already done it to NZ netball who’ve taken a 1 year deal at half the annual value of their previous deal, while they explore trying to rejoin the Aus league. If that doesn’t work out though, they are officially fked so they’re shitting themselves.
