BT Sport – Digital Game Changers

Launched on August 1^st 2013, BT Sport was one of the most anticipated broadcasting ventures in the world. BT has long been established as one of UKs largest telecom provider. Their newest service – BT Sport – is aiming at meeting demands for instant access to content, based on what people want in that moment. BT Sport is offered as a free service through BT TV and web. On web and mobile, BT offers interactive programming, information and news, creating an immersive experience for users and allowing BT Sport to compete in a very competitive market. Working with Accenture, BT is now developing a multi-platform offering that is easy to use, customized and with integrated services.

Read more about BT´s partnering with Accenture here

BT Sport Deals and Sponsorships

BT Sport holds exclusive live TV rights to 38 Barclays Premier League matches, as well as exclusive or shared rights to the FA Cup, UEFA Europa League, Scottish Premiership, Scottish League, Conference, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Primeira Liga football matches. This makes them a huge player in the sport broadcasting industry, challenging other major players and competitors such as Sky, and in 2013, BT also acquired ESPN´s UK channels and sport broadcasting rights, eliminating more competition. Recently, BT sports also won exclusive rights to all 350 matches a season in Champions League and Europa League for three years, starting this season. This deal was worth £897 million, more than double the value of the last deal. This also challenged competitors in the market. In February this year, BT also announced that they had won the rights for 42 live Premier League games for 2016-19, however they are not only involved in football. Last year, BT made a deal with the Scottish Rugby, renaming the home of Scottish Rugby to ‘BT Murrayfield Stadium’. BT also backs Scotland’s club league and cup competitions and is the official shirt sponsor of Scotland’s two professional clubs – Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors. In fact, in April this year, BT announced that as part of their three-year deal with Scottish Rugby, they will also be shirt sponsors for Scotland’s rugby team.

Interesting articles on BTs most recent deals:

Premier League Deal

Murrayfield

Champions League

Funny Funny

BT-sports just revealed this hilarious advert to mark the arrival of Champions League to the station!

Here it is, check it out:

SWOT & BT-sports vs Sky sports

To see how BT-Sports situation today is, we did a SWOT analysis to figure out its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
It was also interesting to read about BT-sports and Sky, to understand the differences between both of them.
BT-sports are really challenging Sky and it impressive to see how they do it when they are new in the market.
Here are some interesting links with comparisons of BT-sports and Sky.

BT-Sports vs Sky Sports

Can BT-sports Challenge Sky?

Our BT Sports visit

For the week we spent in London the Thursday was one of the most interesting days. This was the day where we visited the Reebook center and BT Sports.  BT sports were located right next to the Olympic park and since the whole area was under reconstruction, their own private shuttle bus was picking us up.

The BT visit came out to be much more interesting then non of us would have thought. When we entered the building (which looked like a reconstruction site) we were welcomed and followed to the waiting room, the room where guest waits before they enter the program they are visitors in. Here we got a brief introduction from the director and then he asked us what we wanted to know about BT sports and why we were there. Really good tactic to see if us the students knew anything about the company and also to get a picture of what we were interested to know more about. Some questions came up about the media rights for Champions League, which they have an exclusive 897 million pound three-year deal to broadcast live Champions League and Europa League (here is an article for some more info about BT vs Sky:Click Here)  Then we asked how they see Sky as a competitor, which of course is their main competitor. BT sports position themselves very different from Sky as they are seen as more formal, strict, clean and “boring”, while BT sports is more colorful, happy and appealing. You will also get this impression from their webpages that looks like this:

Then we were so lucky to get a tour around the facilities. They showed as the offices, the working areas where they produce television and we also got to see people actually working with an introduction to a program. Additionally, we got to see the BT Sports studios.