BoxRec

In the ever increasing war between SKY and BT, both companies seem hell bent on outdoing each other in a bid to grab sports subscribers.

BT recently launched BT Showcase on Freeview. On this channel they will show 1 Champions League game per week, 1 Europa League game per week along with some rugby and other sports coverage. Pretty much it's a free channel showing free sport whilst promoting BT's pay TV channels.

Anyway it looks like SKY are set to respond with SKY Sports Select and SKY Sports Discover. SKY Sports Select is going to be available to those on SKY's lowest package being the Family Bundle. According to the below picture, they're going to be showing 10 live boxing events for free on this channel:

http://postimg.org/image/p8x7p1q1f/

SKY subscribers who have either Sky Variety, Sky Family or are Sky HD subscribers get access to SKY Sports Discovery which appears to offer even more free sports:

http://postimg.org/image/juyfhi0b7/

I have no idea if this is genuine or not. The pictures only surfaced about 90 mins ago across various TV forums. I have no idea when these channels are launching, and if the channels will launch on Virgin Media.

Will be interesting to see how this develops.

If they are going to go down the PPV model a fair bit then they need to start using this to showcase their talent.

People who don't buy skysports and aren't particularly big boxing fans aren't going to buy a ppv event. If they get to watch Joshua, Cambpell etc for the next year or so for free on this channel then you've got a bigger potential audience to hit up when they get the big fights.

SKY Sports Mix launches on 24th August for SKY and Virgin Media customers.

This picture from the recent SKY press conference suggests boxing will be featuring on this new free channel!

will this be fights that are on the normal sky sports channels also on this free channel???

Not really a free channel if you have to already be a subscriber to sky...

I'll be amazed if this channel turns out to be anything other than essentially a 24/7 advertisement for the full Sky Sports package tbh.

lpu03rjs wrote:Not really a free channel if you have to already be a subscriber to sky...

Correct!

thatllbeme wrote:will this be fights that are on the normal sky sports channels also on this free channel???

That's what they originally suggested last year when news of this channel first broke. I'm thinking it's likely to be the Sauerland shows and any PBC cards SKY pick up rather than Matchroom shows but we might be pleasantly surprised.

Boxerbeetle wrote:I'll be amazed if this channel turns out to be anything other than essentially a 24/7 advertisement for the full Sky Sports package tbh.

The channel is now on the SKY platform but doesn't launch until next Wednesday. Here's the live content which has been confirmed so far over the next couple of weeks:

Wed 24 Aug:
1.30pm - Live ODI cricket: England v Pakistan

Thur 25 Aug:
10.30am - Live European Tour golf: Made in Denmark (1st session)
2.30pm - Live European Tour golf: Made in Denmark (2nd session)

Fri 26 Aug:
10.30am - Live European Tour golf: Made in Denmark (1st session)
2.30pm - Live European Tour golf: Made in Denmark (2nd session)
7.00pm - Live EFL: Burton v Derby

Sat 27 Aug:
8am – Live Rugby Union – New Zealand v Australia
12pm – Live F1 – Belgium GP Qualifying
7.15pm – Live La Liga – Real Madrid v Celta Vigo
12.30am – Live MLS – Toronto v Montreal

Sun 28 Aug:
11.30am – Live F1 – Belgium GP Race

Thur 1 Sept:
7.30pm – Live Super league – Wigan v Widnes

Sat 3 Sep:
12pm – Live F1 Italian GP Qualifying
12am – Live MLS – Vancouver v New York

Sun 4 Sep:
11.30am – Live F1 Italian GP – Build-up only – Race NOT SHOWN
2.30pm – Live GAA – Hurling Final
8pm – Live LPGA Tour Golf – Manulife Final Round

Mon 5 Sep:
7.30pm – Live World Cup Qualifier – Serbia v Republic of Ireland

Wed 7 Sep:
7.30pm – Live Elite League Speedway (Teams TBA)

Thur 8 Sep:
7.30pm – Live Super League (Teams TBA)
1am – Live NFL – Carolina @ Denver

Fri 9 Sep:
7pm – Live EFL – Reading v Ipswich

One of the adverts current running confirms SKY Sports Mix as the home of Friday Night Football. A game each week from either EFL, LaLiga, MLS or International qualifiers.

In between the live content are shows like Game Changers, Footballs Funniest Moments, Golfs Funniest Moments, A League of Their Own, Soccer Am Best Bits, Sporting Triumphs, Sporting Masterclass, "Extreme Sports" - BMX, Snowboarding etc...

If your already a SKY Sports subcriber this new channel doesn't give you any additional content. The channel mirrors content that's already being shown on 1 of the other SKY Sports channels. Customers of SKY and Virgin Media who don't subscribe to SKY Sports will receive this new channel at no additional cost.

Sky has been behind the times for a while.

Without live sports they'd be in trouble because are failing to sign up youngsters coming of age who are getting their first home - because of price, inflexibility and the fact many of them have been in their bedroom or university watching video-on-demand and are used to Netflix etc and we've also got Smart TV's that will receive BBC, 4OD, CH5, ITV player and also premium 4K content from Amazon Prime & Netflix for an absolute fraction of the cost f Sky...

... And the Smart TV can receive all of the above via WI-FI , so no clunky box, big dish and sat cables coming into the house and being routed into every bedroom where to is required.

If a giant like Amazon wanted to enter the live TV arena they'd be screwed. Amazon's online cloud capability is one of the biggest, they even host Netflix on their servers and can easily beam TV into any device or to you own via a wifi connection.

Just reading a few financial analysts who are all in agreement that people holding stocks & shares in Sky should sell them.

They say sky cannot maintain their profitability against increasing competition, changes in the attitudes to how television is watched (I.e. Video on demand / Netflix) and that the stock is already overpriced.

Share price is down 25% year on year and is in decline. They've hoodwinked share holders in the last 18 months by declaring their subscribers have increased when in reality many that were cancelling, were simply re-signed up on very cheap new deals that were half price or less than what they'd previously paid. I dare say they booked them as a 'new subscriber' to bury the truth that everyone was tired of their extremely unrealistic high costs.

But shareholders have cottoned on to it now and like I've said for several years, it will be sold, or sky sports spun-off or it will exist as an 'app'.

A lot of decent people work at Sky, but Murdoch has been too greedy. Hopefully he goes and another company take it in to the future. Far too much bloat on their channels, apart from the HBO & Showtime stuff they license, the rest is crud that can be found on freeview.