Spark announced yesterday it had secured the exclusive New Zealand rights to three seasons of the Premier League from August 2019 through to May 2022 — including every match live and on-demand.
It also had the rights to some related content such as packaged highlights.
Spark has the New Zealand rights to Manchester United TV from later this year.
Premier League and Manchester United TV will be offered on a subscription basis through Spark’s sport platform, due to launch early next year.
Jeff Latch was appointed as head of Spark Sports, leading the acquisition of content rights and delivery.
Earlier, Spark secured rights to the Rugby World Cup 2019 and Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2021.
Pricing for the sport steaming would not be revealed until closer to the launch. Mr Latch said he was confident it would offer great value and be attractive for New Zealand sports fans.
Spark would be partnering with a specialist sports-streaming platform provider to deliver its sports content. Details would be released later but it would be different to the one Spark now used for Lightbox, he said.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said the Spark deal was a further erosion of the stranglehold SkyTV once held on sport coverage in New Zealand.
‘‘We will see more of this — the chipping away at Sky from every angle. We never had to worry about it in the past but now we have so many choices of where to get sports coverage.’’
The question still to be answered by Spark was what it had to pay to secure the Premier League and Manchester United TV, he said.
SkyTV’s options for survival included paying more to outbid competitors for sports coverage and cutting the cost of subscriptions to ensure subscriber retention.
Many people were sick of SkyTV and were likely to use the Spark deal to move away from it, Mr Timms said.
SkyTV has the rights to the All Blacks, Super Rugby and the Mitre 10 Cup until 2020. It also has the rights to women’s rugby.
Spark shares traded at $3.82 yesterday, down slightly. SkyTV traded unchanged at $2.57.
