Search: 'BSkyB'

Trouble and takeover at the world’s richest football club
by Mihir Bose
Aurum Press, £18.99
Reviewed by Adam Brown
From WSC 244 June 2007 

Buy this book

The spate of foreign businessmen buying English clubs has received little serious attention from the nation’s hacks who seem to regard the process in the same way that a child looks at a glittery bauble on a Christmas tree. Bose, now the BBC’s sports editor, should be congratulated for providing this incredibly detailed account of the failed BSkyB bid to buy Manchester United in 1999 and the successful Glazer family takeover in 2005.

Read more…

Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano end up at Upton Park of all places – courtesy of Kia Joorabchian. But what will it mean for the Hammers and the rest of the Premier League?

Whatever the facts that emerge surrounding the arrival of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mas­ch­erano at West Ham, there’s no point in becoming overly exercised by this latest move, whatever the baggage proves to be. In moral terms, top-level football plummeted down the abyss a while ago. With the creation of the Premiership and the Champions League, greed became the dominant principle. The only question these days is whether greed is the reason for an investment or what provided the funds to make a bid possible.

Read more…

Simon Melville reports on the free phenomenom that is live football on the internet

Want to watch live Premiership football but can’t afford Sky? No cable TV in your street? Local watering hole doesn’t show those Egyptian broadcasts of the Premiership you’ve heard pubs in the East End of London have?

Read more…

Steve Menary reports on a conflict of opinions between UEFA and G-14

Vision Europe sounds like a new chain of opticians, but is actually UEFA’s attempt to address an increasingly short-sighted approach to football in the game’s commercial heartland.

Read more…

Live football helped Sky transform the UK television market – and now Rupert Murdoch hopes it can yield similar profits on the internet. Bruce Wilkinson reports

The current spat between the football authorities, Sky and the European Commission may be little more than a sideshow to the most significant media  business event of 2005 – BSkyB’s acquisition of the broadband internet provider Easynet for £211 million, part of a major drive to acquire new media interests around the world. As the EC worries about Murdoch’s monopolistic grip on English football, his henchmen are gaining a stranglehold over what many experts predict to be the future of sports broadcasting – the live coverage of matches over the internet.

Read more…