Originally Posted by
mistaTea
Yes, it is entirely possible that a new investor could go it alone.
But ultimately they will want to maximise earnings to generate the best ROI.
If you sold rugby as a stand-alone product you could maybe charge $25/month like Spark Sport. Plus you would then have to pay someone like NEP to shoot the local super rugby games etc.
It has been touted that the current deal with Sky is worth as much as $100M per annum, and of course as part of that deal Sky shoulder the cost of filming the rugby matches.
So to earn what they currently get from Sky, a new rugby-only OTT product would need to attract over 350,000 customers who subscribe for the full 12 months just to break even on what they get each year from Sky. And the Sky cheque is pretty well guaranteed (apart from the Covid claw back which is a one in 100 year event) whereas an OTT model is at the mercy of subs they can sustain.
So to be better off they prob need at least 400K paying subs for 12 months of the year.
Yes NZ is a rugby loving nation, but I don’t think a stand-alone service would get anywhere near that many subs.
Which is why the aggregation model still makes sense and, in my view, Sky is still best positioned to service that need.