Given how aggressively BT are pushing into the pay tv + broadband market, in direct competition to Sky, I suspect had BT wanted to bring in RL they would and could quite easily have pitched in heavy and hard already. The more powerful their offering, I would have thought the faster BT would win market share - which is what it is all about really? BT announced some fifures today that showed revenue growth for the first time in ages, and caused by shedloads of new BT broadband connections.
If the wakners would finally get round to wiring our local street cabinet up for fast broadband I might feel more charitable towards them!
But it is clear - and the markets have acknowledged it - that Sky are having to broaden out their sports coverage base, and not concentrate so heavily on soccer, because they know they are under relentless attack from BT there. So its less a case of keeping wolves away, and more a case of diversifying a bit more because their core offering is under serious and sustained attack.
As for whether the RFL should have waited? If the numbers being bandied around are correct, then IMO it would have been madness to wait. This deal assures the game of much more funding, and for a much longer period. It will mean clubs and owners - and prospective owners - can plan with a lot more certainty and confidence. And it looks like it will bring a lot more money into the game outside of SL, without which I fear a majority of those clubs would not have had much longer.
Bird in the hand or two in the bush? Who knows whether BT WOULD have been interested in two years time? If it was clear by then that they were NOT interested, at least on the scale Sky are, then that would be the worst possible outcome since Sky could then have offered a low value knowing they were probably the only game in town. If they WERE interested, given how much they have had to shell out for soccer, and only a couple of years into the payback phase, how likely is it that they would have offered that much more than Sky?
As it stands, if BT have not make a pitch already, Sky will not know BT's strategy, and will not know whether they WOULD look to make a serious pitch for RL in the future. SO they are left with either making the RFL an offer it could not refuse now, and if it meant paying more than maybe they needed well that is the price of certainty. or waiting and risking getting outbid in the future.
And if BT already HAVE made a pitch - and do you know they have not? - then the RFL will have done the right thing anyway by going for what we would assume would be the better deal on offer?
