Sky Wins Rights To Show Premiership Football On Mobiles

BSkyB has won the rights to screen Premiership football highlights on mobile platforms, in partnership with News Group Newspapers (NGN), publishers of The Sun and the News of The World.

From August 2007, Sky will be able to offer mobile phone users 380 matches played every season, in a deal lasting three years, with packages including highlights, goal clips and key moments of matches while the games are in progress, while NGN also provides clips to its readers.

NewsLine has previously reported on how the Premier League had hoped to get an auction going for mobile phone rights between the five UK mobile phone networks; 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone (see BSkyB In Bid To Secure Premier League Match Rights For Mobiles).

Both BSkyB and NGN are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which means that they will jointly market and promote the in-demand football content.

Earlier this year BSkyB won four of the live TV rights packages (out of a total of six) and BSkyB and BT won the right to carry 242 near-live league matches across the internet every season .

Mike Anderson, managing director of News Group Newspapers, the News International division that includes the two newspapers involved, said: “This is great step forward for The Sun and News of the World.”

BskyB: 0207 705 3000 www.sky.com