Looks like the Spark Premier League deal is forcing Sky to up their game with the football content they have left.
They are now broadcasting a lot more Champions League games starting this season - twice as many as last season, 138 games in total.
Spark are quoted as saying they have carefully studied online sports broadcasting in Australia and the UK.
They are offering EPL to non-Spark customers from launch next season (Optus in Australia are only making EPL available to non-Optus customers from this season after securing EPL rights and offering it only to their customers failed to tempt a lot of people to switch telco providers)
If Optus in Australia are anything to go by, their cost seems pretty reasonable at $AU 14.99 per month (can just subscribe to their EPL coverage alone without being an Optus customer):
https://www.optus.com.au/for-you/entertainment/spo...
I hope that Spark keep the cost reasonable at that sort of level.
Some Optus phone and internet plans throw in the EPL coverage for free.
They have every game live and available on demand and throw in some la Liga games from Spain too.
And the price is the same as what we currently pay to have beIN Sport on Sky TV.
I see a`problem for the Phoenix in Sky TV in NZ not being able to retain football fans after this season - most people want to watch the EPL and many football fans will ditch Sky to watch the EPL on Spark.
This will mean an even smaller audience for the Phoenix and the A-League on Sky, further eroding those all-important metrics the FFA are looking for in terms of continued Phoenix participation in the A-League.
I myself would be doubtful about continiuing to subscribe to Sky TV after this season.