As a consumer your choice is pay for an overpriced sub-standard product or don't. If you don't pay for it and then watch through other means then Sky/BeIn are no worse off than if you don't pay for it and don't watch it at all. The Ferrari analogy fails because if you steal aa Ferrari then someone else has one less Ferrari. The fact that people here are talking about paying for overseas streaming services shows it's not about not wanting to pay at all, but about wanting to pay a reasonable price for a decent product.
The same thing happened with Napster damaging the CD market, but when paid alternatives to Napster (iTunes, Spotify) became available people showed they would be willing to pay. Ditto torrenting and tv shows/movies (Netflix, lightbox, Neon, Hulu etc).
The only way companies like Sky and BeIn will improve their pricing and product is if they lose money and subscribers. If we all just kept paying for whatever shark they provide then why would they ever try to improve it?
Mmmm, not sure that's how they would see it given they have paid for the exclusive rights. The price they pay is on the basis of the service they can offer in NZ. If you can just pay for it elsewhere (or get it for free) from someone with a different business model then that undermines the value of the rights that they have paid for.
I get that the ability to access content by other means lowers the threshold for quitting Sky, so illegal access does harm Sky, but obviously plenty of people are willing to pay if the service is reasonable and the price is fair. Because Sky's exclusive rights give them a monopoly on legal access to the games the usual way to drive prices down (entry into the market by a competitor) can't happen here, at least not at the point where consumers can choose between two or more providers (maybe at the rights bidding stage but Sky's pre-existing monopoly gives them a huge advantage).
Sky's monopoly is legal but it's still a monopoly. I totally get that Sky's only loyalty is to its shareholders and they have no obligation to change anything just because consumers are pissed off. The only way they will change is by losing subscribers to the point where they have to change something to stay viable.
When sky or any broadcast pays for rights they do so on the basis of exclusivity. If you can just go off and get the product elsewhere it means that the thing they have paid for is worth less then what they have paid for it. It does harm them because the thing that they have paid for loses value.
Sky is not a monopoly in any sense of the word. Buying exclusive rights is not a monopoly - all sporting rights are sold exclusively.
http://m.economictimes.com/definition/monopoly
