Price shock for Sky customers: ABO will be more expensive from July 2024!

Price shock for Sky customers: ABO will be more expensive from July 2024!

Welt, Deutschland - Sky recently announced that the prices for the WOW streaming service will be raised from July 2024. Customers with a live sports monthly subscription will have to pay 44.99 euros instead of 35.99 euros, which corresponds to an increase of 9 euros. This price increase is due to the increased costs for the new Bundesliga licenses that will apply from the 2025/2026 season. In addition, Sky lost the license rights for the Bundesliga conference to DAZN, but keeps the first division into play on Saturday, the newly introduced Friday game and the complete 2nd league.

This is not the first price increase for the WoW streaming service. The last adaptation took place in early 2024 when the prices from 29.99 euros were increased to 35.99 euros. Existing customers with a WoW annual subscription in live sports continue to pay 29.99 euros in the first year and then 35.99 euros. New customers who subscribe to the Sky Q or WoW packages are not affected by price increases in the first 12 months.

Current price structure for new customers

The prices for new customers are determined as follows:

• Sport package (incl. Premier League, DFB Cup, Formula 1) Plus Bundesliga Friday: 25 euros (from the 13th month 30 euros).
• subscription with 1. and 2nd Bundesliga: 30 euros (from the 13th month 40 euros).
• Packages Sport and Bundesliga together: 35 euros (from the 13th month 50 euros).

The WoW Live Sport subscription also includes access to sports such as Formula 1, tennis, ice hockey, golf, athletics, MotoGP and Indycar Series, which makes the offer attractive for sports lovers.

market development in sports streaming

The continuing price increases in the sports streaming market reflect a larger trend. In recent years, platforms such as Sky, DAZN and Magenta Sport have fought the transmission rights for various sports more intensively. Today, fans often have to complete several subscriptions in order to be able to access their favorite content. For example, fans of FC Bayern Munich pay 57 euros per month for all games this season.

In addition, the market is more complex by new providers such as "Dyn Media", which was founded by the former managing director of the Bundesliga, Christian Seifert. With a focus on less popular sports such as handball, basketball and volleyball, Dyn Media aims to strengthen these sports areas. The company recently achieved transmission rights for various leagues and plans to make marginal sports more popular. Nevertheless, these initiatives face challenges, since the app from Dyn Media has so far only received a user rating of 2.4.

Overall, it can be seen that the pricing in the streaming sector often results from increased costs, but is also shaped by the competitive situation. Subscribers have to grow deeply into the pocket in order to gain comprehensive access to sports broadcasts.