Sad indictment of TV football.

[Gordaleman]

TV might be a boon for armchair fans, but it's a sad indictment of TV football that although there is a full PL programme this week end, only one game, ours, kicks off at the traditional time of 3 pm on a Saturday.

In the old days, before SKY, eveyone kicked off at 3 pm and by 5 pm, everyone knew exactly where they were in the league after the same number of games. Now, you have to wait three or four day.

Some people might like that, but I don't.

[mdd2]

Or 2.15 pm in the depths of winter

[Im_not_Robbie_Blake]

Aye, it's a shame, but the sheer fact that all the teams can play out the season at all is wonderful.

[Gordaleman]

Aye, it's a shame, but the sheer fact that all the teams can play out the season at all is wonderful.

I'm talking about normal seasons, not just Covid ones.

[BenWickes]

When I was a lad we had wood rattles and rosette's. Whatever happened to them?!

[Sheedyclaret]

Sky puts all the money in so guess they can choose any time or day for games, us fans are bottom of the chain unfortunately....

[NottsClaret]

Not sure now's the time to be moaning, it's quite the achievement they got the league going again and spread the games out so fans have a chance of seeing as much as possible.

[Gordaleman]

Not sure now's the time to be moaning, it's quite the achievement they got the league going again and spread the games out so fans have a chance of seeing as much as possible.

As I said above, I'm talking about normal seasons, not just Covid ones.

[Dyched]

If your whinging about 3pm ko on non covid seasons why are using this weekend as an example?

[MACCA]

Give every team 140m a year, and you can decide what kick off times suit you.

You can arrange a game to kick off either side if your Sunday big shop.

Problem solved.

[ClaretTony]

Being fair to the TV companies, they have been able to help enormously during this restart by ensuring all of the games are shown. That means spreading them out. Right now, with people unable to go, it doesn't matter when they are played within reason.

When we finally get back to how it was with people able to go, the 3 p.m. will again become a TV free zone when at least you will get some matches played.

I agree with Dyched, if you are going to complain about this, you couldn't have chosen a more inappropriate time.

[Gordaleman]

If your whinging about 3pm ko on non covid seasons why are using this weekend as an example?

Probably, because I can't use a normal season at the moment?

Anyway, if you have a different view, that's fine. I was putting MY point of view, no one elses.

[Gordaleman]

Being fair to the TV companies, they have been able to help enormously during this restart by ensuring all of the games are shown. That means spreading them out. Right now, with people unable to go, it doesn't matter when they are played within reason.

When we finally get back to how it was with people able to go, the 3 p.m. will again become a TV free zone when at least you will get some matches played.

I agree with Dyched, if you are going to complain about this, you couldn't have chosen a more inappropriate time.

Probably, because I can't use a normal season at the moment?

Anyway, if you have a different view, that's fine. I was putting MY point of view, no one elses.

[Rowls]

The worst that could possibly be said about the TV companies right now is that perhaps we have accepted a Trojan horse of a gift. But we won't know until later.

Churlish to complain when they've been so accommodating. They've allowed the contracts to be altered to allow as many people as possible to watch all the games. They've agreed to allow the product which they have paid handsomely for to be shown completely free on national TV.

And they were exceptionally good in not charging subscribers when the football was off the telly.

[ClaretTony]

The worst that could possibly be said about the TV companies right now is that perhaps we have accepted a Trojan horse of a gift. But we won't know until later.

Churlish to complain when they've been so accommodating. They've allowed the contracts to be altered to allow as many people as possible to watch all the games. They've agreed to allow the product which they have paid handsomely for to be shown completely free on national TV.

And they were exceptionally good in not charging subscribers when the football was off the telly.

And also, apart from BT, all the extra games have been shown free to air.

[IanMcL]

When I was a lad we had wood rattles and rosette's. Whatever happened to them?!

I passed my rattle on, I think and the rosette went to the Newcy fan sat next to me, at the Hillsborough semi! That accounts for 2!


Perhaps rosettes could make a come back! I get to wear one at election counts!

[Dyched]

Probably, because I can't use a normal season at the moment?

Anyway, if you have a different view, that's fine. I was putting MY point of view, no one elses.

I don’t totally have a different view. But you’ve selected a Saturday in covid time with 1 3pm

There are normally about 4 or 5 PL 3pm.

[UnderSeige]

TV might be a boon for armchair fans, but it's a sad indictment of TV football that although there is a full PL programme this week end, only one game, ours, kicks off at the traditional time of 3 pm on a Saturday.

In the old days, before SKY, eveyone kicked off at 3 pm and by 5 pm, everyone knew exactly where they were in the league after the same number of games. Now, you have to wait three or four day.

Some people might like that, but I don't.

I don't either. Neither do I like the increasing commercialisation squeezing every last penny out of fans that the TV companies can get away with. I don't like the glittering changing advertisement hordings either.

VAR is also rubbish. Who cares if the referee and linesmen get it wrong sometimes. It's all part of the game.

[Chester Perry]

The worst that could possibly be said about the TV companies right now is that perhaps we have accepted a Trojan horse of a gift. But we won't know until later.

Churlish to complain when they've been so accommodating. They've allowed the contracts to be altered to allow as many people as possible to watch all the games. They've agreed to allow the product which they have paid handsomely for to be shown completely free on national TV.

And they were exceptionally good in not charging subscribers when the football was off the telly.

I have been posting a bit about this in the MMT thread including a content from a well renowned sports media analyst @YannickRamcke (blog and podcast) he be believes that the Premier League has had to give up an awful lot of content and access that they were holding onto for future tender cycles to try and placate the media and minimise the rebates, The benefit that the Premier League had over the other European Leagues was that it still has so many games in reserve for domestic markets (currently 180 of the 380 total) - all other leagues had sold every game to domestic broadcasters (which helps to explain why from next season all domestic deals in the big 5 leagues are so closely match - France being the last to join the party).

In the last 2 cycles the Premier League has given up a lot more games to domestic broadcasters and seen the price per game almost halve, the pricing in the current cycle has fallen dramatically with a huge number of extra games and an almost £500m drop in income.

The issue of broadcast times is as much to appease International broadcasters as it is domestic ones (early broadcasts suiting the middle and far eastern Markets, late ones the American (North and South) - it has to be said that NBC has profited enormously from lunch-time and 3pm kick offs - as their weekend morning schedules are now full of high quality content.

Pandering to International audiences can be seen most dramatically in La Liga where they play games in the mornings and after midnight to try and build International audiences - they have been very aggressive on that front.

Of course the more games a league sells, the more slots (kick-off times) the league has to be prepared to meet - It wasn't that long ago that Super Sunday was 2 games, we are now seeing 4 scheduled one after another.

The single benefit to the match going fan is that both the league and the broadcasters have now priced the value of full stadiums into contracts - it was one of the 2 key factors in the rebate negotiations (schedule adherence being the other).

Going forward schedules will be determined by the numbers of games sold by the league and the elasticity of numbers of fans prepared to attend games regularly at those times. we have already seen in Germany that fans when organised and committed can impact the schedules, Next season there will be no Monday night games because of sustained protest and boycott of Monday night games both in match attendance and tv audiences.

Will English fans be so committed to drive such a reversal - unfortunately history suggests not

EDIT
I should add that the free to air games are as much about getting potential subscribers into the funnel as they are about giving broadcasters/clubs/sponsors the opportunity to generate extra advertising revenue/brand exposure.

What we have seen in the free to air games is market share of the tv audience being significant - up to 30% - 40%. If this was to continue into a season behind closed doors it would lead to significant protests from other free to air broadcasters. This has already happened in Italy. It is one reason why they will be no free to air games next season if it is played behind closed doors. Another is that the rightsholders themselves believe that to continue to do so would devalue their content to both subscribers and advertisers.

[LordBob]

When I was a lad we had wood rattles and rosette's. Whatever happened to them?!

still got my rattle and painted pit helmet somewhere.

[DCWat]

And also, apart from BT, all the extra games have been shown free to air.

I’m not sure why BT couldn’t have at least done a pay as you watch type approach, rather than a full month, minimum subscription.

It won’t encourage me to go with them in future seasons, when I’m already paying for SKY and Amazon (plus Netflix and Apple TV, albeit not for football of course).

If they did day passes, I’d happily pay for the times that we are shown, and I’m not at the game.

[Chester Perry]

I’m not sure why BT couldn’t have at least done a pay as you watch type approach, rather than a full month, minimum subscription.

It won’t encourage me to go with them in future seasons, when I’m already paying for SKY and Amazon (plus Netflix and Apple TV, albeit not for football of course).

If they did day passes, I’d happily pay for the times that we are shown, and I’m not at the game.

The BT position probably tells you more about the flexibility of their billing capabilities than anything else - they do not own a free to air channel and seem unwilling to use their YouTube channel.

Having previously done some work in telco/utility billing, these systems are cumbersome and not very agile for such changes in model - BT has a long history of monthly billing - probably none for single event billing

[DCWat]

I appreciate that it’s slightly different but don’t they already do one off events such as boxing and UFC?

If it’s down to a billing system issue, after a number of years in the television game, I’d have expected a company like BT to be reasonably quick in adapting their capabilities.

Perhaps much easier said that down, but still.

[Rowls]

I’m not sure why BT couldn’t have at least done a pay as you watch type approach, rather than a full month, minimum subscription.

It won’t encourage me to go with them in future seasons, when I’m already paying for SKY and Amazon (plus Netflix and Apple TV, albeit not for football of course).

If they did day passes, I’d happily pay for the times that we are shown, and I’m not at the game.

Hopefully we'll be able to review the way the football packages are uactioned once our departure from the EU is complete.

It was the EU which insisted the packages be broken up and a blind auction held. When Sky won all of the blind auctions, they dictated that they could not be awarded to a single broadcaster.

Net result - the fans paid more.

BT have done themselves no favours.

[bobinho]

Not sure now's the time to be moaning, it's quite the achievement they got the league going again and spread the games out so fans have a chance of seeing as much as possible.

You make that sound like that was the actual goal. Risks are being taken, there is no social distancing, there is no achievement. Rules have been bent to facilitate this, for financial reasons.

We all know why the season was started again... the fact that it’s spread out like it is has got nothing to do with the fans.

[bfcmik]

Hopefully we'll be able to review the way the football packages are uactioned once our departure from the EU is complete.

It was the EU which insisted the packages be broken up and a blind auction held. When Sky won all of the blind auctions, they dictated that they could not be awarded to a single broadcaster.

Net result - the fans paid more.

BT have done themselves no favours.

How come all the other leagues across the EU were able to select a single broadcast partner after direct negotiations then? Seems like another of those anti-EU fallacies to me,

[Rowls]

How come all the other leagues across the EU were able to select a single broadcast partner after direct negotiations then? Seems like another of those anti-EU fallacies to me,

"Seems like...."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ball.ofcom

[Chester Perry]

How come all the other leagues across the EU were able to select a single broadcast partner after direct negotiations then? Seems like another of those anti-EU fallacies to me,

It was a combination of our own competition authorities (with aggressive campaigning from the likes of Virgin Media) and the Premier League recognising that no single supplier would provide them with the income they were looking for

Just so you have a correct picture all the big 5 leagues have multiple broadcasters (between 2 and 4) - in Spain a single broadcaster won but were forced by law to sell some of their rights to a second broadcaster. and in those other leagues every game is available for broadcast on domestic TV

[Rowls]

It was the European Commission.

[Chester Perry]

It was the European Commission.

not just them as I said

[Rowls]

It was a European Commission ruling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast ... ier_League

[wilks_bfc]

I appreciate that it’s slightly different but don’t they already do one off events such as boxing and UFC?

If it’s down to a billing system issue, after a number of years in the television game, I’d have expected a company like BT to be reasonably quick in adapting their capabilities.

Perhaps much easier said that down, but still.

They also usually show the Champions League Final free of charge on their YouTube as well so it is possible

[boatshed bill]

TV has brought football to millions...and millions to football.