Whilst Sky is retaining rights for broadcasting the 2020 and 2022 Ryder Cup contests in the UK and Germany, Discovery have acquired the Ryder Cup rights in other countries across Europe including Italy, as well as additional rights to PGA European Tour events.
Discovery owns the Eurosport channel and they have been significantly adding to their sporting event portfolio recently. Having also secured the European rights for the Olympic Games, the 12 year PGA Tour deal shows that they are a real contender for broadcasting sport.
Eurosport could become the Netflix for golf
The European rights will form part of their new strategy to offer a streaming service, in what they hope will become the ‘Netflix for golf’. This weekend’s Ryder Cup, which has started in France today is not included in the deal.
The developments happening with sport broadcasting is seeing a shift towards online streaming, with Sky currently being acquired by Comcast. They intend to expand across Europe using streaming as an alternative to satellite broadcasting.
Online streaming becoming more popular
Discovery recently used the coverage of the Winter Olympics to attract subscriptions for their new Eurosport online player, which gained 500,000 subscribers in just 10 days.
Sport broadcasting is changing and in the future, Sky are not expected to monopolise the industry like they used to. With companies like Discovery now offering different deals, viewers will have more choices in the future to watch their favourite sports.
