The estimated 27,000 pubs and other venues that show live sport finally have an alternative to a conventional TV sports subscription, following the launch of the UK’s first streaming service designed and built exclusively for commercial premises – Screach.
Screach has partnered with the broadcaster Premier Sports, which owns the rights to more than 1,500 live sports events including Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s top-flight Serie A football, to deliver pubs an estimated 150 incremental live matches that don’t clash with Premier League fixtures. The Premier Sports channels also show live Scottish cup football, America’s MLS soccer league and all 152 matches a season of the Guinness PRO14 rugby tournament.
Previously the primary way pubs could show live sports was via a Sky satellite box, typically with a 12-month commercial premises subscription costing an average of £20,000 a year covering both Sky and BT sports.
By contrast Screach’s technology enables content rights holders to stream live sport to pubs on more flexible commercial terms, allowing them to offer customers lower subscription costs and shorter contract lengths.
Crucially Screach also provides digital marketing functionality which uses a venue’s existing TVs and social media to drive footfall and sales, helping pubs improve the return on investment in sports subscription costs.
Premier Sports’ partnership with Screach is a “watershed” moment which finally brings the streaming revolution to pubs – offering them both live sport and a powerful marketing tool, says Screach CEO Robert Rawlinson.
Robert Rawlinson, CEO of Screach, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Premier Sports to launch the first ever enterprise-grade streaming service to UK pubs. Showing live sport has long been an effective way for pubs to drive footfall and increase revenues, but the increasing fragmentation of sports rights has driven up complexity and cost – inflating subscription costs by around 17% in the last three years alone.
“Screach’s vision is to help pubs by giving them an integrated live streaming and venue marketing platform, delivering an ever-increasing range of live sports events from multiple providers, as well as a powerful marketing tool that gives pubs payback for their investment.
“Our innovative partnership with Premier Sports delivers their content via streaming, with only a 90-day minimum period. This offers existing sports pubs more flexibility, while giving those that don’t currently show live sport a highly cost-effective way to show live sports to draw in more customers, without a long-term commitment.
“This is a fresh approach in the way that pubs harness the power of live sports and get a return on their investment. We’re currently in advanced discussions with other contents rights holders which should soon see Screach announce more partnerships to bring more streamed live sports to pubs with flexible commercial terms.”
Richard Sweeney, CEO of Premier Sports, commented: “We’re determined to offer commercial premises an innovative, flexible way to show our live sports in their venues. Screach not only offers us and our customers a live streaming solution, but also one that helps them market live events effectively to assist the payback on the cost, increasing our customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
“We look forward to working with Screach to continue to offer pubs a value-adding proposition as well as show existing and new content rights partners of ours how commercial premises streaming offers market growth opportunities”.