IS SKYS MONEY REALLY KILLING BRITISH SPORT?
Sky has divided sports fans ever since it began paying vast sums of money to televise Premier League football and the English cricket team’s Test matches. While hundreds of thousands of customers have been happy to pay monthly subscriptions to watch their sporting heroes, many more have criticised the broadcaster for taking the sports from out of the reach of ordinary fans. The satellite company enjoyed a monopoly on screening games from the top tier of English football for years but now has to share the rights with Irish broadcaster Setanta. When, in February, the Premier League auctioned the rights to three years of live matches from the 2010-11 season, Sky kept its role as the holder of rights to most live matches. The broadcaster is believed to have paid £1.623bn as England’s top 20 clubs earned a total pot of £1.782bn, to be shared proportionately based on which teams are shown most frequently. Doubters have said the vast sums involved have funded an influx of foreign players and
