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It has become an article of faith that mega-mergers reduce competition and harm consumers. “Four players good, three players bad,” almost has become a mantra for competition watchdogs. It would be a mistake if the Competition and Markets Authority were to blindly stick to this orthodoxy when it scrutinises a deal that has the potential to shake up Britain’s mobile telecoms sector.

Tom Harrington at Enders Analysis said: “Even without taking into account downward pressure on sports rights costs and subscription fees/ad revenues (which makes monetisation harder) and a clear drop in the quality of the competition (with fewer teams), TNT should be in line for a big reduction.”

James Barford, head of telecoms research at Enders Analysis, also reckons Giffgaff may be going down the broadband avenue.

“For Giffgaff, the highest priority is probably to launch a broadband product to support the fixed network economics of its parent company VMO2,” he said.

“There has been a renewed push into ‘services beyond connectivity’ recently across a number of European telcos, although there have been many efforts at this over the years, and some of these are in reverse, such as Orange withdrawing from banking, and BT partially exiting from sports rights,” Barford explained.

Francois Godard, senior media analyst for Enders Analysis, believes that Sky will hold on to at least three of the five packages, but will be loath to lose one of its weekend slots and so could even try to have the maximum four.

“Sky could reduce costs by cutting down on one weekly slot, but we expect it to fight for four packages, consistent with its history of prioritising the prominence of its Premier League coverage,” said Godard, who added that Sky losing one TV slot out of the four it holds now would be a serious drawback.

“Sky may decide it does not want to take this risk,” he said. “This would be consistent with the company’s history of being ready to enter bidding wars if needed to keep its Premier League standing.”

“Without the Premier League, TNT Sports would likely lose its premium aura and need to cut its retail prices,” said Godard, who also views YouTube as a “long shot” while Apple has ruled itself out.