Now, under a deal announced on May 12, BT Sport will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Discovery - the global giant known as Warner Bros Discovery since April, when it was bought by Warner Media.
In our part of the world, Discovery is best-known for buying Three broadcasters MediaWorks TV and its food and lifestyle channels. But across Europe, it also owns a swathe of sports rights. BT will still get a profit share from the new setup, but the Financial Times calls the deal part of the telco's "managed exit from sports broadcasting".
Across the Tasman, Telstra last year stopped streaming AFL and NRL games in favour of offering its customers discounted Foxtel access. And although Optus recently renewed its EPL contract, earlier this month it gave up rights to UEFA (European football) matches to Stan - a unit of traditional broadcaster Nine.
What's curbed their enthusiasm? With Amazon and other new players joining bidding wars, the business of owning top-tier sports rights has proved ferociously expensive.
The brand risk is high (witness the All Blacks-Springboks streaming fail in 2020), and the reward low. Spark has never released financials for Spark Sport, but it sits in the "Other" category (also including Spark's big data unit Qrious and its internet-of-things operation) that had total revenue of $61m in the first half of FY2022 - not a meaningful figure in a company with revenues around the $4 billion mark.
And then there are more and more sports bodies who are experimenting with direct-to-consumer streaming services. The latest is FIFA's streaming service, which has the potential to evolve into a global Netflix of football. Meanwhile, two Disney direct-to-the-consumer properties - Disney+ and ESPN+ - continue to grow strongly, proving the potential of cutting out both old-school and digital middle men.
Plus, the more traditional broadcasters - including Sky in NZ - who at first seemed to be teetering with streaming, but have now got their technical and commercial act together.
"In our view, an exit from Spark Sport makes sense given the difficulty getting traction and questions around the size of the profit pool in pay-TV sport, given competition and the power of rights holders," Jarden head of research Arie Dekker told the Herald earlier this week.
Dekker saw Spark's sale of its Lightbox entertainment streaming service to Sky (in a deal that closed in 2020) as a possible precursor to the telco exiting sport.
He notes the telco has not said anything about selling Spark Sport, and head of Spark Sport Jeff Latch says the platform remains committed to building a content portfolio that can drive it to profitability.
But Dekker maintains Spark should flick off sport.
"Spark has been struggling to build a platform with sufficient recurring content to attract a broad audience," he says.
"The Rugby World Cup is a premium event but we've made the point previously that events like the Rugby World Cup do little to help build a platform given the short duration of the competition."
Spark recently lost English Premier League rights, and Sky implied it did not have to bid till it hurt to regain them. The telco did recently expand its UEFA deal for European football games - which would help bolster the appeal of its lineup in the event of any sale.
Dekker says it's possible Spark sees long-term potential in sport. And if that is the case, pack a lunch. The analyst notes it will be a multi-year wait before the next rights of major sports like rugby, cricket and league are next up for grabs (remembering he sees little value in one-off events).
Although he favours a sale himself, Dekker says Spark seems to have more interest in developing partnerships - including the telco's recent announcement that Discovery would be its free-to-air partner for the next women's Rugby World Cup.
Spark did note in its first-half FY2022 investor presentation that Spark Sport future revenue growth was "likely to be slower than originally expected". It was considering the impact of the loss of the Premier League and "Accelerating strategic partnering options to drive improved returns". The telco is now tipped to partner with Discovery on the next men's Rugby World Cup, which could be the precursor to a wider deal.
