egafd.com

just been informed by a mate who runs a city centre pub that sky want 11k for the next year to allow him to show sky sports downstairs in his pub. we're talking a pub that has the city's football supporters base there, so obviously it's football based. this can't be right surely !

There are a load of pubs buying official subscriptions to ART (Arabic), TPS (French), Digital Albania and other Euro packages as they rebroadcast the Sky transmissions ... including 3pm Saturday matches. But they (Sky & FAST) are trying to crack down on the practice because it's breach of copyright to show the broadcasts in public - although it's perfectly legal to watch in a private residence. It's far cheaper to watch UK football via Digital Albania or ART Sport, at about ?90 for a six month subscription ... and for that you get movies and hardcore porn as well.

He is right unfortunately.
I am a member of a social club and we cancelled our Sky subscription a couple of years ago when Sky upped their price to 7 grand for the following year.
Now the club only had a total membership of 400, not all of whom were avid sports fans. In order to cover the cost, the price of membership would almost have to have been doubled.
Apparently Sky take no notice of how many people would be watching thier channels when it comes to charging for pubs, clubs etc.
Their pricing is done purely by the rateable value of the property, so yes, a city centre pub is going to be hit with a huge bill.

It is down by the rateable value of the property as my mate runs a pub and he has confirmed this.

I'm not sure what he pays for the Sky Subscription but he pays about a grand on top for the pay per view games on their own.

Sky's billing page for pubs is here.