First it was English football, now it is top golf. Sky Television has lost the rights to screen another major sport, and it can be assumed some sort of online-only group will pick them up. Is the gradual erosion of Sky's near-monopoly on sport a good thing? Rugby writer STEVE HEPBURN believes so, but sports editor HAYDEN MEIKLE is not so excited.
Hepburn says
Television producer Neil Roberts was a polarising figure but, in some ways, he was a man before his time.
Roberts had a short stint as the head of TVNZ in the late 1990s. Being in a job like that always attracted attention, not all of it good.
Roberts lived to an ethos of ''popularity rules''. If it rated, it stayed. If it did not, it went. Sunday Theatre, top current affairs - they all were under threat when Roberts was in charge.
That is the way television has evolved. And that is why golf is disappearing off Sky.
It does not rate. No-one watches it. Only the majors rate, and Sky is keeping the big two - the British Open and the Masters.
It is a shame for golfing fans, and they are dwindling by the day, but a good thing for most sports fans.
How many times do you wake up on a slow Sunday morning and tune in to Sky Sport to find some golf tournament on from the back of beyond?
One wants to see real sport on Sunday morning. Rugby, cricket, league. Not no-name Americans or Europeans playing golf.
Plus it is only the third round. Sure, that is the moving round but there is no winner declared at the end of the four-plus hours coverage.
All the top American tournaments finish on a Monday morning, when everybody in this part of the world is at work.
Hopefully, the money Sky saves from not paying for golf will go into upping its bid to win back the English Premier League rights next season.
Breaking up Sky's hold on sports is also a good thing.
No matter how much it argues it is not, Sky is a monopoly in this country.
Nothing good comes out of a monopoly. For evidence of that, go buy a plane ticket from Dunedin to just about anywhere.
Meikle says
To be honest, I should probably join my colleague on the ''YES'' side of this argument.
There is no doubt the break-up of sports television rights in New Zealand is a great and wonderful thing.
If you have decent internet speeds.
If you like only football or you like only golf or you like only the Eastern Malaysian Kickboxing Premier League.
Otherwise, it stinks.
The average Kiwi sports fan is the big loser from this whole process.
If, like me, you are particularly fond of a few sports but are keen to be able to watch every major code from your armchair, you will be resistant to anything that makes this more difficult.
Sky is often seen as the big, bad wolf - a sort of Kremlin of the broadcasting world - but I would argue sports broadcasting in a country as small as New Zealand is one industry where a monopoly is not a bad thing.
Sky does a brilliant job of promoting and presenting televised sport. It puts the free-to-air channels to shame.
The breaking up of sports rights will cost you more, if you want to watch all codes, and the quality of the product will dip. It's a lose-lose for the consumer.
I'm a football fan, and was lucky enough to get a free subscription to Premier League Pass last year.
It was not an experience that made me jump on the online-only bandwagon. The biggest problem was the graphics.
The images were fine on my iPad but flickery and pixellated when connected to the big screen.
Mobile technology is great, but sport is meant to be watched in crystal-clear HD on a big screen.
And until Kim Dotcom becomes the president of a New Zealand republic and gets us all lightning-quick internet, accessing our sport through online technology is pointless.
Back to the golf. This is simply bad news for fans of the PGA Tour, and our Lydia Ko, and the under-rated European Tour.
Do you really want to watch golf on your mobile phone?
Are you in the Hepburn camp or the Meikle camp?
Email us (sport@odt.co.nz) with your thoughts.
