European Football’s Online Rights Disputed by Major Portals

The never-ending battle for online rights to European football’s Premier League just got more bitter: AOL, BT and Microsoft are threatening to boycott the League’s current rights auction, claiming it breaches European competition rules.

The companies can bid for the “as live” package of 242 games that can be shown in full after 10pm on the day that they are played. The auction includes not only broadband operators but also to broadcasters such as BSkyB, the BBC and ITV, which makes these internet companies fear that the package will go to a pay-TV operator with deep pockets, which will ignore the internet in favour of television coverage. This, they claim, could deal a heavy blow to the nascent broadband content arena and could lead to a fresh European challenge.

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