Apple Is Going To Bid For English Premier League Streaming Rights

According to the Daily Mail report, Apple wants to bid for rigts to stream English Premier League (PM) games. English Premier League is the England’s top football league and one of the most popular football leagues worldwide and it is expected that bidding for the rights to stream its content will generate billions of dollars for the league and the teams. The league will consider bids for the next football season after the rights to stream games expire at the end of the current season.

The Daily Mail notes that both Google and Apple are interested in acquiring rights to screen Premier League games for their respective Google TV and Apple TV services. Such content is regarded as premium and could help increase popularity of Apple TV in the UK while driving up iPad sales.

Apple’s iTunes subscription infrastructure in the United Kingdom is secure, but Apple TV is not very popular due to shortage of streaming apps available within the country. Apple TV currently offers subscriptions to Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and NBA Basketball apps, therefore an app for viewing Premier League matches would considerably compliment the available selection.

The Daily Mail wrote that involvement of Google and Apple would give the Premiere League a highly competitive market at the time when the price of rights to other TV sports is declining.

SkySports and ESPN are current holders of the rigts to screen live games. ESPN even has permission to show goals through its app “ESPN goals”, but the BBC is only allowed to show highlights in its programme “Match of the Day”in the United Kingdom.

The Mail also notes that ESPN, Al Jazeera and Sky are three bidders vying for television rights at this time. Sky bought its package for £1.6 billion, and ESPN apparently wants to purchase more content.

The PM has a large global audience, so it is natural that Apple would try to acquire the rigts, especially after rumors suggested that launch of Apple’s high-definition TV is expected in 2012.