The BT team given the task of winning television rights for some English Premier League football matches were determined to spring a surprise on rivals thrown off the scent by rumours (untrue) of interest from Al Jazeera. Secret war meetings were held around kitchen tables far from the British telecoms group’s City of London HQ.
The ruse worked. In a coup masterminded by Gavin Patterson, BT’s new chief executive, in his former role as head of its consumer business, the company shocked the market in June last year with a £738m swoop to revive its faltering television platform. The move wrongfooted BSkyB, Rupert Murdoch’s British TV behemoth, whose dominance of sports TV is being challenged by Mr Patterson’s vision of a BT unshackled from its staid past as a state monopoly.
There was no such subterfuge last week, however, when BT doubled down on its bid to topple Sky by stealing the crown jewels of the football calendar. The company let its wallet do the talking, tabling £900m for European Champions League football. Shares, which dipped initially, quickly regained value as investors accepted the unexpectedly aggressive move. Sky executives say this was far beyond what they were willing to spend.