The massive global appeal of soccer is very much in evidence during Euro 2012.  There is also no fear of this interest peaking following news that the English Premier League has secured a 70% increase in the fee paid for the domestic broadcast rights from the 2013/14 season.
The bidding process concluded with Sky holding onto the main five packages including Sunday afternoon and Monday evening games and BT replacing ESPN as the broadcaster of the other two packages including Saturday lunchtime games.
Sky will pay €940 million for each of the year years of the deal with BT putting in an additional €300 million.
The German Bundesliga recently secured a 50% increase in the broadcast rights for the top flight of German soccer.
BT’s involvement will accelerate the move from the traditional ‘box in the corner’ view of broadcast rights to a much broader outlook on broadband and mobile devices.  The company has said it will launch a football focused channel likely to be available through existing pay per view platforms but it will also drive content through its online services
Its package includes 18 of the first choice matches across the 38 ‘weeks’ of the season and numbers 32 games in total during each campaign.  These are the similar packages once owned by Setanta Sport.
Sky were also keen to stress the development of online routes to the viewer when welcoming the news it was to remain as the main provider of British football pictures to an audience that shows no sign of reaching saturation.