With the new Premier League 2016/17 season two weeks away, BT and Sky are once again locked in a multimillion pound marketing dogfight for broadcaster bragging rights as they aim to convince consumers that each is the pre-eminent football channel of choice.
Sky’s Beckham-fronted ‘It Could Happen’ campaign is built around the Premier League’s exciting possibilities and the fact that with 126 live matches its boasts Premier League dominance with more games than anyone else (and than ever before).
While BT’s ‘4 Properties / 1 Venue’ initiative showcases its range of football properties: blending game footage and player imagery from multiple competitions into creative assets demonstrating that it is the only broadcaster with rights to show four of the major European football competitions (Premier League, UEFA Champions League and Europe League and Emirates FA Cup).
Whether you are a fan of Beckham or Bale, this is a competition that, despite the current record breaking rights fees, looks set to increase in intensity.
After all, what began as a TV company tug of war and then grew into a multimedia entertainment battleground with the arrival of broadband and telecoms conglomerates will likely become even more competitive in a future that seems sure to see tech and social media giants (eg Twitter and Facebook) as well as new streaming services (eg Netflix and Amazon) bidding for sports rights.
