EU court: Pubs can show soccer on foreign decoders

Consumers can use cheaper foreign TV decoders to watch soccer, an adviser to Europe's top court said on Thursday, in a legal opinion that could change the way the English Premier League sells broadcasting rights.
The non-binding opinion by Advocate General Juliane Kokott at the European Court of Justice centres on whether a rights holder such as the Premier League can license its content on a country-by-country basis, allowing it to maximise the value of its rights, as it currently does.
Judges, who are expected to rule in a few months, back the advocate general's line in the majority of cases.
"The exclusivity agreement relating to transmission of football matches is contrary to European Union law," Kokott said in her opinion.
"(The) exclusivity rights in question have the effect of partitioning the internal market into quite separate national markets, something which constitutes a serious impairment of the freedom to provide services."
The Premier League has benefited in recent years from the huge demand for its rights and has taken action against a number of persistent offenders who have shown live games using decoders with viewing cards for foreign broadcasters.
But Kokott said such use did not undermine the economic benefits of the rights holders.
"There is … no specific right to charge different prices for a work in each member state," she said.
Kokott's opinion concerned two cases, one of them involving British pub owner Karen Murphy, who acquired a Greek decoder to show Premier League games on her pub TV, on the grounds that the BSkyB Sky Sports monthly subscription was too expensive.
Murphy was subsequently sued by a body representing the broadcasting interests of the 20 English Premier League clubs. She appealed to the ECJ after losing her case in an English court and was ordered to pay a fine.
The second case involved the Football Association's Premier League against two suppliers of foreign satellite equipment. The English body had earlier settled with a number of pub landlords who had used the decoders to show football matches.
Dominant pay-TV group BSkyB, which owns the right to show most of the matches shown live in Britain, makes about 200 mln pounds in revenues from pubs and clubs, according to analysts at Jefferies Research.
They estimated an adverse ruling could have a 60 to 70 mln pound impact.
"However, given Sky's integral role in sports rights, we would expect the impact to be muted with (the Premier League) to offer remedies to limit the impact," Jefferies Research wrote in a client note ahead of the adviser's opinion.