Sky Sport Now monthly sub goes to $59.99 from 1/4/26. I will not renew.

Movieman:

 

I complain each time my Sky Sport subscription gets an increase, and I often threaten to cancel the service. Then I think hard on where I can get my sporting fix for less (without streaming illegally).

 

I am an avid fan of the English Premier League and much of my weekend is taken up watching several games. I am also a NZ Warriors couch fan, and make full use of Sky Sport to watch several NRL games each week in season. On top of that, Sky has got back rights to screen NZ cricket, plus I'm a casual F1 fan, plus all of the major tennis tournaments. On top of that we are getting several sports in 4K UHD (don't have the white box yet, but working on it) and it becomes obvious that Sky Sport, to me is still value for money.

 

I have friends who cancelled their Sky subscription and subscribed to Sky Sport Now to save a few dollars, but they are not happy with the service and are looking at going back.

 

Until Sky loses the rights to the EPL and NRL, I will just pay the increase and enjoy the service.

 

I'm surprised that they were outbid by TVNZ for the rights to the FIFA World Cup though. 

 

Pretty much for me too. I'm an obsessed fan of an EPL team and it's important to me to be able to watch all their games. Sky is the cheapest and most reliable way of being able to watch all the games live or on demand. Some dodgy streaming options are ok for live but not for on demand which is also important to me personally - I work full time in the week, and have Saturday morning sport so I value not having to get up at 3am on Sunday. UK don't even get all the games. When it's my big passion, I also value being able to just sit down and watch it and not have a VPN or DNS setting fail and having to spend hours faffing about getting it working. Some midweek evening games also happen during work hours (ie, 8 or 9am kickoff NZ time), so I can watch on Sky Go between the train and lunchtime. I watch a lot of other UK and Europe based sport but EPL is the deal breaker. 

Have a decent deal at the moment - Sky pod (with the required sky starter) with sport for $57 a month. My wife does watch some of the other starter channels (TLC etc) so it's worth it for us. Got a decent discount when it moved over from Vodafone TV so each year when it runs out I've phoned and asked for another one and been given about 25% off. Always worth asking. I figure they'd rather keep you at a discount than lose you entirely.

More on this from Radio New Zealand: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/587327/sky-to-lift-prices-of-sky-sport-and-sky-sport-now-by-about-10-percent

BNZ customers - 20% off for three months: BNZ app - three horizontal lines - BNZ rewards - BNZ perks - Sky Sport Now 

The offer is valid when the promo code is redeemed, either when signing up as a new customer, or, for current customers, is applied to your existing subscription, before 31 December. If you’re an existing Sky Sport Now Monthly Pass customer, the 20% discount will be applied to your next automatic subscription payment. 

It was $38 in 2024 and had increased twice since then and their subs have been stable. They obviously think the market can take the increase. 

Sky could improve things a lot by moving its content from Sky Go to the 3 Now platform or opening Sky Go to non satellite subscribers offering those with good internet the opportunity to dump the woeful satellite service.  Its Neon service is bothersome as it was when it was Lightbox.

Like others, I use it for sport (F1, LPGA, PGA, DP World Tour and the odd others) Also BBC and CNN, a few docos. Plus free TV. All in one place suits me. Plus I record and auto record almost everything I watch, handy too

Works for me

tdgeek:

 

Like others, I use it for sport (F1, LPGA, PGA, DP World Tour and the odd others) Also BBC and CNN, a few docos. Plus free TV. All in one place suits me. Plus I record and auto record almost everything I watch, handy too

 

Works for me

 

 

 

I miss watching motor sport a lot. I am a F1, Supercars and Touring car fan. I wont pay Sky prices. 

MikeB4:

 

They are bleeding subscribers and losing content providers. Their revenue is only maintained by price increases not increases in market share. All fiscal markers are trending down. Revenue down, net income down, assets and equity down. Their share price over the last twelve months is a trend down.  That is not a healthy outlook.

 

As long as I have been here, these threads are full of people predicting the death of Sky, but here they are with an uplift in earnings and long term rights acquisition. 

Sky isn't going anywhere unless they are acquired. 

Furthermore, if you think Sky is ripping people off, I'd suggest taking a look at their margins. They are well within reasonable. 

Sports rights won't drop in value any time soon, neither will the cost of watching them. We are a tiny market, therefore the cost + profit / number of subscribers = sell price. 

networkn:

 

Furthermore, if you think Sky is ripping people off, I'd suggest taking a look at their margins. They are well within reasonable. 

 

Their margins have nothing to do with whether I think they're ripping us off or not. And I think that is a poor argument myself. Very crudely (I know its a bit more complex than this) their margins come down to what they pay rights holders for the content. Arguably if they didnt charge us so much they wouldnt/couldn't offer the rights holders the prices they pay. And the rights holders would realise this when they're not getting the same offer(s) from NZ distributors.

nzkc:

 

Their margins have nothing to do with whether I think they're ripping us off or not. And I think that is a poor argument myself. Very crudely (I know its a bit more complex than this) their margins come down to what they pay rights holders for the content. Arguably if they didnt charge us so much they wouldnt/couldn't offer the rights holders the prices they pay. And the rights holders would realise this when they're not getting the same offer(s) from NZ distributors.

 

It's quite a strange take that you think Sky would offer MORE to rights holders so they could charge more for the content.

I hate to break it to you, but that isn't how content (or in fact any) negotiations work. If you think that the management of Sky doesn't understand that having lower prices makes the product more accessible and potentially offers more volume, then I am not sure what to tell you. 

If Sky didn't get the rights someone else would likely do it, or they just wouldn't have that sport shown here at all and then you'd have people complaining about that. 

I do find it strange that there is SO much complaining these days of rising prices, but everyone wants to get paid more, and complains if they don't. It seems a popular misconception that most business owners are just raking it in and screwing over their staff and laughing whilst they bath in champagne at the plight of the common worker. The truth is far from that in most cases. 

I have no issue with reasonable price increases but if it coincides with diminishing standards and service then I have the right to voice disapproval and withdraw my patronage. 

MikeB4:

 

I have no issue with reasonable price increases but if it coincides with diminishing standards and service then I have the right to voice disapproval and withdraw my patronage. 

 

This is a completely reasonable position and what I would hope most customers do. It’s up to the business to continuously demonstrate value to customers. If they don’t it’s the businesses bad luck. 

Investing in productivity seems to be an anathema for many New Zealand businesses and then they cry they have to put up prices. Sky has been more guilty of this than most businesses. When they were making large profits through the Fellett era they didn’t invest to provide more value to their customers. 

invisibleman18:

 

Movieman:

 

I complain each time my Sky Sport subscription gets an increase, and I often threaten to cancel the service. Then I think hard on where I can get my sporting fix for less (without streaming illegally).

 

I am an avid fan of the English Premier League and much of my weekend is taken up watching several games. I am also a NZ Warriors couch fan, and make full use of Sky Sport to watch several NRL games each week in season. On top of that, Sky has got back rights to screen NZ cricket, plus I'm a casual F1 fan, plus all of the major tennis tournaments. On top of that we are getting several sports in 4K UHD (don't have the white box yet, but working on it) and it becomes obvious that Sky Sport, to me is still value for money.

 

I have friends who cancelled their Sky subscription and subscribed to Sky Sport Now to save a few dollars, but they are not happy with the service and are looking at going back.

 

Until Sky loses the rights to the EPL and NRL, I will just pay the increase and enjoy the service.

 

I'm surprised that they were outbid by TVNZ for the rights to the FIFA World Cup though. 

 

 

 

 

Pretty much for me too. I'm an obsessed fan of an EPL team and it's important to me to be able to watch all their games. Sky is the cheapest and most reliable way of being able to watch all the games live or on demand. Some dodgy streaming options are ok for live but not for on demand which is also important to me personally - I work full time in the week, and have Saturday morning sport so I value not having to get up at 3am on Sunday. UK don't even get all the games. When it's my big passion, I also value being able to just sit down and watch it and not have a VPN or DNS setting fail and having to spend hours faffing about getting it working. Some midweek evening games also happen during work hours (ie, 8 or 9am kickoff NZ time), so I can watch on Sky Go between the train and lunchtime. I watch a lot of other UK and Europe based sport but EPL is the deal breaker. 

 

Have a decent deal at the moment - Sky pod (with the required sky starter) with sport for $57 a month. My wife does watch some of the other starter channels (TLC etc) so it's worth it for us. Got a decent discount when it moved over from Vodafone TV so each year when it runs out I've phoned and asked for another one and been given about 25% off. Always worth asking. I figure they'd rather keep you at a discount than lose you entirely.

 

 

 

This is the exact reason for me too, although my team is now in a relegation fight, so things might change!

I pay around $20 a month for an IPTV service, and get the annual Black Friday Sky Sport Now deal of $399 as well. IPTV is brilliant for live sport, and the quality of the stream and reliability is excellent but it's not an option really for on-demand. I am well past the age of getting up in the early hours to watch. I can watch all the Cup games and European games too

Having an IPTV means I can share that with my sons (19 and 21) too, as Sky Sport Now are tight arses and only allow one stream at a time, different to almost all other providers, Kayo in AU, Sky in the UK (who offer 2 as a minimum and you can pay more for up to 4)

The 4K rollout seems to be a bit of a soft launch to me.