The spark has gone

TVNZ, Sky and NZC win following announcement of telco's exit, but what does the future hold? PLUS: A single-issue Week That Was and Weekend That Will Be.

Spark Sport invested heavily in cricket. Andrew Cornaga / Photosport

It’s felt like a long time coming, but Spark have officially pulled the plug on their sports streaming service.

Spark Sport’s demise was sadly inevitable from the moment Spark’s corporate board rejected the chance to purchase the NRL rights that would have run from 2023-27.

While they would have had to pay over the odds to secure the rights, the opportunity was there to get a desperately needed toehold in the winter market but it is understood that corporate, still scarred by the negative reaction to its failed stream in the opening match of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, decided not to free up the cash.

And so the first real challenge to Sky TV’s virtual sports monopoly has foundered, with TVNZ picking up most of Spark Sport’s book until the current deals run out.

Most of the feedback I’ve had at both the Herald and since starting The Bounce would suggest that Spark Sport won’t be mourned for long but I believe it added necessary urgency to the sports streaming market. By the time the telco was entering the sports market, Sky had become not just expensive but was also perceived in many quarters as arrogant and customer unfriendly, obsessed by ring-fencing its content.

In the past couple of years there is a very real sense that Sky understands that love will not come from slapping its name on buildings and shirts, but by providing a better service for customers across multiple platforms, of which the soon-to-be-launched Sky Box is the key.

Sky wants to re-own the living room and sees the box as a way of doing that, maybe not to the same extent it did when its satellite cord had astonishing penetration across New Zealand households, but to be the dominant TV cabinet device.

While this is a great piece of opportunism by TVNZ, I’m not sure this positions it to be a challenger to Sky in the sports rights market beyond the occasional one-off event like an Olympics.

Rights to long-running leagues - which gives you content churn you desperately need to retain customer loyalty - are cripplingly expensive, as Spark found out, and there is no real business case for TVNZ (still under a merger cloud) to launch a sports subscription video-on-demand service while the world is in belt-tightening mode. 

Spark’s withdrawal follows a trend of telcos entering and exiting the sports rights market. In the UK, BT have folded their rights into traditional providers, as have Optus and Telstra in Australia.

The biggest winner out of their foray into the sports rights market have been in nearly all cases, the sports organisations themselves. To wit, New Zealand Cricket has inadvertently hit this out of the park, banking the estimated $28 million rights cheque per year and getting the coveted free-to-air platform. 

Which makes it sound like NZC have fallen out of an aeroplane and landed on a truck carrying a trailer of mattresses, but this is exactly the type of due-diligence, safety-net provision clauses they would have signed when choosing to switch to a start-up.

What will be interesting to see is whether over the three remaining years of the deal on TVNZ (Spark do not exit until July 2023), NZC can create enough commercial interest due to their far wider audience, to offset what might be a loss in up front rights if they were to continue with the state broadcaster.

If not, they’ll be back on the market and who knows who might have popped up as a player by then.  

Social media giants like Twitter and Facebook have dipped their toes into the sports rights market without fully committing, so right now it feels like the biggest threat to traditional sports subscription providers around the world is coming from utilities like Amazon ( through its Prime service), and Apple (through Apple TV), which has shelled out for the 10-year rights to Major League Soccer.

The next few years will be an intriguing time for sports rights here, particularly around the pay-TV free-to-air partnerships. Spark won’t be a part of that conversation, which is not all that surprising, but still a bit of a shame.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

It was the week of Kane Williamson, and Tim Southee. I wrote about it yesterday and the feedback was appreciated.

Here’s a few to pick up on.

From Andy:

An odd day, full of odd explanations. Why is Kane, now part of the rank and file, fronting on the decision to appoint Southee? Why the departure from the obvious grooming of Latham? Why a 34 year old over a 30 year old (both are lock ins)? Latham could be rightly dark about this, including listening to Kane promote Southee as his successor. Kane also said the relationship to Stead was a key factor in the decision - I’m not convinced that Stead is so important to the BCs over the next 2-3 years that the decision should be constructed around him. Looking out that far and beyond Latham is likely more important than both Stead and Southee.

I’ll move through your questions methodically, with the caveat I’m not an insider obviously, but I have been talking to people in and around the edges of decision, so it is a partially informed comment.

1. The conference was as much about Williamson standing down from the captaincy as it was about Southee’s elevation, so it would have been weird and, from a media perspective, unacceptable for Kane not to front.

2. They know what they’ll get from Tom Latham, which is backbone, solidity and very little departure from Williamson’s leadership methods.

3. The whole age thing is skewed a bit now - think Tom Brady, Roger Federer, James Anderson - because athletes take such better care of themselves now (and drink far less!). Southee could have at least three to four good years left in him and that’s well and truly long ago to leave a mark as a leader.

This is not a referendum on Latham’s leadership. This is just the perfect time to try something out of the box. New Zealand’s test fortunes are sliding, their WTC defence is a busted flush, and orthodoxy in the world game is being challenged by the soon-to-arrive England like never before. Give Southee until the end of this WTC cycle at the very least, see what he’s got and if it doesn’t work out you very elegantly announce that while “I was honoured to have the chance to lead New Zealand, I realise that I will be of more value to the side in the final years of my career to be the best bowler I can be and a sounding board for Tom going forward.”

I really think we’re in no-harm, no-foul territory for the next 12 months and this is the perfect time to try something radical. I’m pretty sure, too, that Latham will continue to get captaincy opportunities, even in tests, and he’s not a bottom-lip dropper so although he might be a little hurt, it won’t disrupt the camp or his bid to become New Zealand’s finest ever test opener.

From Tanya:

I’m disappointed - I would have thought that Williamson would have stopped playing T20s altogether (or at least for a year or so, to manage the elbow injury), step down from the ODI captaincy and keep the test captaincy… but then that’s my “tests are the pinnacle and everything else is a distant second” preference and I guess I am on a hiding to nothing on that one.

Also feel sorry for Latham. Seems harsh to have had him as a stand-in so often and then when the time comes, “Bad luck sunshine, thanks again.” Didn’t think his captaincy record was bad?

Re: Latham, see above. Yes, he’ll be disappointed, but probably not devastated.

Re, Williamson, my preferences mirror yours, but it’s not realistic these days to expect good players to reject T20 and limit their money-making opportunities. He has hurt his market in the past 12 months, but he’s still got skills that would make him attractive to franchises, just not at the premium he once demanded.

From Ash:

With a nod to Francis Urquhart, nothing is forever! Williamson has played this well - giving great service to us all. Southee - I could see him give away white ball and being another James Anderson

If the test captaincy sits well on his shoulders you could be right, but the difference is that Anderson can play red-ball cricket in England and be well remunerated, much harder to make a good living on red-ball cricket alone in New Zealand.

The other factor against that is that Southee just loves cricket. Cannot get enough of it. He hates missing games, tours et cetera and would play every day if he could. He’s the Jerry Collins of cricket. 

NEXT WEEK

I was meant to furnish some sort of content plan for The Bounce’s big sporting year in 2023, but then Kane Williamson went and gazumped everything else.

Look out for that next week, along with a couple of year-end specials - including one involving sports photography legend Andrew Cornaga that I’m really looking forward to - as we work our way towards a few days off around Christmas!

THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE

I have a lot on this weekend, but there’s a couple of things I’ll tune into.

There’s a game of football that I’ll be checking in on. Quite a big one. Messi v Griezmann; Les Bleus v the Albiceleste; European aristocracy v South American primacy. Can’t wait.

Argentina v France, World Cup final,  Lusail, Monday 4am, Prime & Sky Sport 7

This series promises more than the dreadful fare served up in Adelaide in the recent West Indies series.

Australia v South Africa, 1st test, Brisbane, starts tomorrow 1.20pm, Sky Sport 1

Dead rubber, but test cricket is well and truly alive whenever England is near.

Pakistan v England, 3rd test, Karachi, starts tomorrow 6pm, Sky Sport 3