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James said £180m a year would be saved by shifting Virgin Mobile’s network to O2, despite a recent deal for Vodafone to underpin the service. He believes about £100m in tax benefits are there for the taking by “netting O2’s profits against accumulated losses at Virgin Media."

He added “Switching [Virgin Mobile’s network] and backhaul supply is complicated but routine work for a telco. Merging customer service and sales is complicated and a big job, but the extent to which they will merge these is unclear. They can keep them fairly separate indefinitely.”

Francois said “What the breakaway clubs really want is to take control of the Champions League. It is a very aggressive attempt to get Uefa to sign up to a revamp of the Champions League that gives them more power and commercial returns. The two events can’t co-exist. If the Super League were to launch, the Champions League will just collapse.”

He added “I do not think a European Super League will have much impact on the configuration of the UK broadcasting market, Sky would, of course, have a look, but they have taken a step back and are increasingly focusing on being an aggregator of content, so I don’t see a bidding war for exclusivity. There is no sign of a new entrant and Amazon show no sign of buying more than just limited amounts of sports rights. I would expect the US owners of some of these clubs would like to replicate some of the US sports rights market and try to seek more than one broadcast partner.”

Francois said "If I was a buyer the first thing I would look at is how will this affect the value and how much will I have to pay for the Super League. 'I do not know how the Premier League can carry on its auction. It is difficult to see how it could hold an auction right now. To me in this situation, [postponing it] will be the unavoidable outcome unless what we are seeing is brinkmanship [from the Super League clubs."]

Sanchit says the year has been spent mitigating damage. Many titles, such as the latest James Bond instalment No Time to Die, were set for wide release and then postponed.

Douglas said Reuters is “a tremendously powerful part of” the Thomson Reuters brand, and that “the mighty Reuters newsroom behind you and all the really specialized business assets is a great combination.”

He added that convincing consumers to pay for content is challenging because “Reuters is a brand that a lot of people recognize but don’t intuitively go to.” But he is more optimistic that targeting professionals could succeed for Reuters. “All the evidence says to me that these are the subscription models that really work."