{"id":58940,"date":"2026-08-18T18:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/baller-league-sky-sports-deal-ends-matches-go-online-only\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:39:17","slug":"baller-league-sky-sports-deal-ends-matches-go-online-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/baller-league-sky-sports-deal-ends-matches-go-online-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Baller League: Sky Sports deal ends, matches go online-only"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Baller League, first launched in Germany, brings together ex-pros, creators and rising players in 30-minute games with twists on traditional football rules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cz9v5d5l5ljo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Starck previously told BBC Sport<\/a> the format was more popular with 16 to 28-year-olds than the Premier League, although it&#8217;s difficult to double-check the claim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The chief executive has also pointed to the lower cost of tickets and the ability to watch matches without a paid subscription as plus-points for the brand. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sky Sports declined to provide a comment, but Newsbeat understands it was happy with Baller League&#8217;s audience numbers and social media engagement, and that the partnership came to a natural end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Baller League superfan Freddie Rippingale, 21, tells Newsbeat he agrees with Starck&#8217;s assessment and thinks the tournament can succeed without Sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He watches on YouTube and says most people he knows do the same, or watch on the streaming platform Twitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Rippingale, it&#8217;s appointment viewing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Six-a-side football doesn&#8217;t get enough credit for how fast-paced and good it actually is,&#8221; he says. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some people don&#8217;t give it the time to understand the rules and get to know it. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But I love it and I won&#8217;t have a bad word said about it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While Rippingale believes the lack of a deal with Sky won&#8217;t hurt Baller League, he does think it has to keep working and diversifying to win over new fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A women&#8217;s Baller League would be so good,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I know so many semi-pro women&#8217;s ballers that would thrive. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Chloe Kelly&#8217;s already one of the managers in Baller League. Get her involved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3ekqxdzwweo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baller League, first launched in Germany, brings together ex-pros, creators and rising players in 30-minute games with twists on traditional football rules. Starck previously told BBC Sport the format was more popular with 16 to 28-year-olds than the Premier League, although it&#8217;s difficult to double-check the claim. The chief executive has also pointed to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[7251,449,1089,206,16211,16367,643,2107],"class_list":["post-58940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-baller","tag-deal","tag-ends","tag-league","tag-matches","tag-onlineonly","tag-sky","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58942,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940\/revisions\/58942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}