Premier Sports, the Irish pay-TV operator, believes it can reach the “next level” in the sports broadcasting landscape and provide more value to customers due to its recent acquisition by Viaplay Group.
The Sweden-based media and entertainment company announced its acquisition of Premier Sports in July as it prepares for its big launch in the UK market, which is planned for the second half of this year.
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Viaplay described the deal as “a significant acceleration” of its ambitions in the market.
For Premier Sports, the move provides an opportunity to take another key step in competing with other major players in the territory by increasing its content offering and financial capability.
Speaking at a joint media event in London with Spanish soccer’s LaLiga, which Premier Sports will continue to show for the next three years after recently announcing a renewal, Premier's chief executive Richard Sweeney explained that the time was right for a takeover.
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He said: “We’re owned by one person, Michael O’Rourke, and we don’t have any outside investors. He’s built the channel with a very small team and we’ve built it to as far as we can really get it to on one person investing, and it is significant investment.
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By GlobalData“As we all know, sports rights are not cheap. There’s a lag of what you pay and how you drive subscriptions in that sense.
“Viaplay approached us and had lots of ideas which was great and it has the funding and investment behind it and will then move it [Premier Sports] to the next level. At the end of the day, it’s about our customers and hopefully, there’ll be a lot more value and content on the channel.”
Sweeney continues: “For us, we felt we had got it to a stage which we’re really happy with and would’ve been happy to carry on, but if you really want to jump to the next level, you need somebody to come in and buy us, which Viaplay has done, or cooperate on a joint venture like Discovery and BT.
“The market’s changed in that sense, there are a lot of major players in it and it’s going to be interesting times ahead.”
Premier Sports’ pay-TV channels – Premier Sports 1 and Premier Sports 2 – and its Premier Player streaming service, which have 222,000 subscribers, will be rebranded as Viaplay but continue to be available through existing distribution partners and will have their content line-up expanded through Viaplay’s rights portfolio.
Premier Sports’ commercial free-to-air channel FreeSports will also be rebranded.
The acquisition of the Irish broadcaster provides a means for Viaplay to secure more UK sporting rights to complement the rights it has previously secured in the market.
Among the UK rights Viaplay brings to the table are North American ice hockey’s NHL, the KSW European mixed martial arts promotion, and top-tier national team soccer competitions featuring Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland between 2024 and 2028.
The acquisition of Premier Sports will give it additional rights in the country to soccer properties like the UEFA Nations League national teams competition, qualifiers for the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, LaLiga, the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup, and Italy's Coppa Italia.
Premier Sports also has rights to rugby union’s United Rugby Championship and Rugby Football League, North American ice hockey’s NHL, the US-based Nascar stock car motor racing series, and World Athletics properties, among others.
The operator’s platforms are already available across the UK through long-term distribution agreements with Sky, Virgin, Amazon, and Netgem TV, helping to increase Viaplay’s reach from launch.
Viaplay, which was originally launched under former ownership in 2007, is currently live in 11 countries – Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the US, and the Netherlands – with that total set to rise to 16 by the end of 2023 through the addition of Canada, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland along with the UK.
The Swedish company will be seeking to position itself in a UK market dominated by pay-TV giant Sky, as well as BT Sport which will soon provide a broader content offering through the Discovery tie-up.
Sweeney said: “I’m sure Viaplay is looking at other opportunities in the market, as it has done in the other countries around Europe.
“It considers the UK quite an important market to grow its business and that’s what it has to do.”
Overseeing Viaplay’s UK sporting output will be Edward Breeze, who has been hired from sports streaming platform DAZN as senior vice president and the head of sports in the territory.
In regards to Premier Sports, it will be “business as usual” for the company until the deal is formalized as it is subject to regulatory approval which is expected to be received by late 2022 or early 2023.
Through the acquisition, which values Premier Sports at £30 million ($36.6 million), its 23 full-time Dublin-based employees – including Sweeney and marketing manager Shane Hogan – are expected to join Viaplay Group.
Premier Sports was founded in 2009 and is majority-owned by Setanta Sports. Its revenues grew by approximately 33% in 2021 to £26.4 million.
