UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB has been awarded the mobile rights to Premier League football in a three-year deal starting in August 2007. The bid was made in partnership with New Corporation newspapers The Sun and News of the World, which will jointly promote the new services.
After beating a bid from five of the biggest mobile phone operators in the UK, BSkyB will be able to offer mobile users highlights from all Barclays Premiership matches. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Sky has succeeded in retaining four packages of live television rights to Premiership games, with the remaining matches acquired by pay-television operator Setanta. Sky also has near-live rights to over 240 matches shared with BT.
Stephen Nuttall, director of business development at BSkyB said Sky has now secured television, online and mobile rights to the Premiership and can promise the widest range of services and the most flexible ways of viewing across multiple platforms. Full details of the new service will be announced later.
Sky Sports already supplies text and video to all mobile networks in the UK and Ireland and Sky Sports News is available as part of the Sky Mobile TV package.
BSkyB is about to announce details of its broadband offering and is developing new mobile services.
Football, which Sky has successfully used to drive satellite television subscriptions, is likely to be one of the key programming propositions for mobile television and video.