There’s nothing better than meeting your mates down the pub to watch the big match, enjoying a few beers and revelling in the atmosphere the collective experience of cheering your team to victory can bring.
At least that’s what David Rey thinks.
But then he would say that. As managing director of Sky Business, it’s his job to convince licensees of the benefits of screening live sport in their pubs, whether it’s Premier League football, international rugby union, Test cricket, Formula 1 or any other of the multitude of sports that Sky holds the rights to.
“The key differentiator of watching sport in a pub is you get an atmosphere that you can’t replicate at home. But at the core of it is the great content, plus the tools we make available to our commercial customers,” he says.
Rey talks up the value of the tools offered to licensees to help make the best use of their subscription, including second and third viewing cards, free Wi-Fi, access to online training and support, and a new in-game Pub Challenge app to help drive footfall.
Plus the company has frozen its subscription prices for a third successive year, meaning licensees have not had a price increase since September 2010.
Compelling case
All this, Rey argues, makes a compelling case for pubs to take Sky. “We have a product that is the home of sport. The Sky Sports team do an amazing job and we pride ourselves on having great breadth and depth of coverage,” he says.
The stats reinforce the case. About 2.2 million people watch live sport on TV in a pub/bar at least once a week, and one in three people claim they go to the pub more often because they can watch live sport on TV.
Sky’s own research also shows that live sport increases customer dwell time. More than a third of people spend longer in a pub when sport is on TV.
“The economic environment means that competition has become tougher, so the importance of providing a great customer experience in outlets is even more vital. Our product appeals to a broad set — we’re not just in traditional wet-led pubs,” Rey says.
“Look at other countries and the use of sports products in licensed venues is very broad. My wife is half-Spanish and if we go to a bar to eat out in the evenings there’s invariably a TV, and if Barcelona or Real Madrid are playing then you struggle to get a seat and it’s a brilliant atmosphere.”
Rey started his current job in March 2012 after a stint at News International and previous roles in the BSkyB empire. So how would he assess his time in charge so far?
“What we’ve got within Sky Business is a very passionate team of people. What the team have focused on since I’ve been here is being the number-one choice of entertainment partner,” he says. “We recognise that we always are a choice and so we have to live up to that.”
Strong content
Of course, the choice for pubs is now greater following BT Sport’s much-publicised entrance into the TV sports market, with the channel securing the rights to show, among other things, various top-pick Premier League matches, as well as Premiership rugby and — in a real coup — Champions League football from 2015.
Rey acknowledges the new noisy neighbours in the market, but plays questions about BT’s impact with a straight bat. “We welcome competition, but as a team we are very focused on our game,” he says.
“Of course, we were disappointed to lose the Champions League rights. At the same time, we put in what was, by all accounts, a very fair bid. If someone bids more, then you have to let go. But [the new deal] is 18 months away and we have the rest of this season and next season with hundreds of hours of live football. We still have a lot of very strong live football content,” he insists.
One of the trade’s main gripes with Sky is its pricing model — the company charges according to a pub’s rateable value, but offers discounts based on location, whether or not food is served and whether there is an outdoor sports area.
“We want to make sure our product is as accessible to as many parts of the market as possible,” he says.
"We’ve got different pricing levels for different types of establishment. We put in place what has been a successful partnership with Molson Coors (stocking certain brands can give up to 33% discount), which started with freehold pubs and has now extended to various leased and tenanted pubcos. At the moment we’re looking to do a great job with what we’ve got.”
Flexibility
How about flexibility in subscriptions — a pay-per-view option for pubs that just want to show rugby, for example?
“There are always options that we’re continually looking at, but there are no plans at the moment. We get suggestions and requests from customers that we look at seriously. What we have to do as a business is come up with pricing and packaging that can work across the market as a whole,” Rey says.
One area that the company takes very seriously indeed is copyright protection. Sky Sports is only available to pubs in mainland UK via a commercial viewing agreement with Sky Business. Rey says the company will continue to protect its customers from those who use illegal systems in commercial premises.
For this current football season, Sky has upped substantially the number of enforcement visits by its security agents.
“Part of our job and the Premier League’s job is to get the message out there very clearly to licensees that if you want to show Premier League football in a pub you only have two routes: Sky or BT,” Rey says.
To date, more than 1,500 licensees have been convicted for showing Sky Sports without a commercial agreement in cases brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). Since the end of last year’s football season alone, more than 20 licensees have received criminal convictions in such cases.
Positive
Rey is excited about the year ahead, not just in terms of the sporting calendar, but with a more positive outlook for the pub trade as a whole.
“The sporting schedule throughout the summer will be pretty exciting,” he says. “We’ve got more football, cricket, F1 and the Ryder Cup, plus daily programmes covering England at the World Cup.
“I do feel quite positive about the trade when reading forecasts and the investment intentions of businesses, and there was a piece of good news for pubs on business rates in the Autumn Statement. So I look at all of those as positive indicators for the sector. We still have a popular product that is very broad-reaching, so we should absolutely feel more optimistic,” he says.
And his prediction for what’s shaping up to be one of the most gripping Premier League title battles for many years? “Manchester City will be champions due to the depth of their squad,” Rey predicts.
Let’s hope it’s a final-day thriller with pubs packed to the rafters.