The Spark is Extinguished

By Hamish Girvan

On Friday telecommunications company Spark announced its Spark Sport service would be closing in July 2023. To many this was celebrated, to others it was seen as sad when there is now really only one player in the sports broadcast market. Let’s look at how it all came to this.

Spark itself was a rebrand of once monopolistic Telecom New Zealand and it’s new brand was about portraying and embracing a new digital world. Part of Spark’s day one offering was a streaming TV service called Lightbox. Getting some exclusive TV series onboard it had a small niche following (Subsequently Lightbox was sold to Sky TV and is part of their Neon stable now). Then came the big one – Spark beat out Sky Sports and others for the much valued broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019.

As the main rights owner the games would be streamed online with some games shown on free to air television via TVNZ. This all quickly sneaked up slowly on many rugby fans and on the day of the All Blacks campaign kick off match versus South Africa many were scrambling to get their viewing sorted.

Spark Sports’ back up plan was always to use the TVNZ terrestrial TV broadcast channel during matches if any technical issues arose. By half time of that All Black match the second half was showing on Duke, one of TVNZs alternate channels. #PutitonDuke then started trending during the tournament.

During the rest of the tournament (despite very minor glitches) the main two print media outlets had great joy anytime there were technical issues( this was mainly gained from perusing Spark Sports social media) and would thrive on news of Spark Sports technical difficulties. Ironically these organisations were yet to fully grasp that no one buys newspapers anymore and don’t have paywalls in general on their online news either. Irony or envy ?

Was this way too early for mass market sports streaming in 2019 of the national game ? Maybe, but then again there is a consumer segment that streaming any content is a bridge too far. The technical platform Spark Sport broadcasts on is used by many other sports internationally including the NBA. Home internet is always challenging for some regardless of the world class fibre network New Zealand has – look at the challenges some have in recent times on video calls working from home. Sure, the RWC had the odd glitch but those who only know a remote when it comes to watching anything still couldn’t get it.

There was more to come.

Spark then starting picking up some other rights. The English Premier League – football’s biggest and most watched league was next – which is something Sky had not had the rights for a number of years – anyone remember Colosseum who were the first organisation to dip their toes in the sports streaming game? Other codes soon followed NBA, NFL (only some games of those sports but still), Formula One,

In 2019 just after its RWC broadcast Spark Sport hit another jackpot with exclusive rights to all NZ Cricket home games. This was a major coup not only for Spark Sport but also a financial windfall for NZ cricket from the sale of the rights.

Again the outrage started. How could our summer game be limited to so few in terms of viewership ? Junior numbers would also suffer by all accounts as the rationale was if you cannot see your cricketing heroes on TV what motivation is there to play the game ? What many missed at the time (and possibly still do) was the as part of the deal a number of domestic and international matches would be also broadcast on free to air TVNZ. Live Sport on free to air TV? There had been nothing like that since the early 90s

More criticism followed when Spark Sport had the rights for both the recent Women’s Rugby World Cup and the Rugby League World Cup. There was still those pining for Sky to be the only broadcaster of any sport.

Last Friday, kind of out of the blue, but there had been speculation, Spark announced it was getting out of the sports broadcast game. Admittedly it had lost the rights to the EPL which now is broadcast on Sky in albeit a slightly inferior product compared to Sparks offering in terms of  demand ability and timeliness of overnight games to appear online as well highlight availability. Spark never won the 2023 RWC rights so it seemed that compelling content was declining and subscribers would be starting to wonder what was next.

Spark Sport exiting the streaming scene does have a positive for cricket fan. As TVNZ were a partner of Spark Sport, the NZ Cricket television rights will now transfer to their free to air partner.

Under the initial agreement a number of domestic Super Smash matches and some internationals had already been shown on TVNZ. Viewing numbers were well up for these games with 62% of Super Smash matches and the first match of any home T20 series already broadcast on the TVNZ free to air channel with very successful ratings.

From Summer 2023 every game will be free to air and eyeballs on every home New Zealand game can only but increase. This is a massive boost for Cricket NZ as the original rights income is also still guaranteed.

New Zealand needs more competition in many areas and sports rights are possibly one that will be rued once Spark departs. Having one player in the market diminishes any appetite to improve a service and potentially by one player owning every main sports right deal could lead to price rises.

Farewell Spark Sport – you made others pull their socks up in terms of online streaming and price wise you were good value. Let’s see how the competition react – however predictions will be it’s with some satisfied glee.

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