I don't mean attendances for top flight games and the games that are actually being shown, I mean more that the lower league game attendances might take a hit - especially on those cold, wet January afternoons - where the prospect of sitting at home in the warm watching live football might appeal over trudging down to Gigg Lane to watch Bury against Chesterfield for example. Those clubs definitely can't afford to slash ticket prices to get fans in through the doors if they want to keep their heads above water.
Gigg lane on a cold, wet January evening was a surprisingly good trip for me! Saw them win 4-0. Atmosphere was very good too, even if it did feel like it was still the 90's.
Yeah, good point. For some reason I'd assumed we were only discussing top flight matches. I don't think there would be any drive to show lower leagues and, if they did, those lower league teams should definitely get a substantially large slice of the TV money pie.
Sky provide all the cameras at the grounds. If they pull out then they will remove the cameras and that will be the end of all the live coverage - paid and free. That would represent two fingers to you and the rest of the ' something for nothing ' brigade.
If Sky and rich owners pulled the plug how many of the 92 league Clubs do you think would survive? Crawley, who played us this week, got 2300 through the gate last home match - probably took less than £50k. Do you think that keeps them going for 2 weeks? If not, where do you think the rest of the required money comes from?
If Sky pull out then someone else will step up. It's not like they'd pay the £3bn (or whatever it is) if they weren't making massive profits on it. The Premier League is not going to go untelevised just because one big company says they've had enough. It's also not like online streaming represents a credible threat to Sky. If it was then the legal campaign to remove them would be much larger, or they'd be trying to offer more attractive packages to tempt more people into paying.
Sky Sports costs £24 a month and for that you get 7 channels showing various different sports and a 24 hour sports news channel. As far as football is concerned you get 4 Premiership games a week, at least one from the lower leagues, the League Cup and a channel devoted to showing European football including all Champions League matches not shown on other channels as well as La Liga etc etc. However can the cheapskate something for nothing brigade on here argue that it isn't value for money and that Sky are ripping us off!!
Sorry DH but that is rubbish. The only alternative provider is BT. Sky pay as much as they do because they can get paid for worldwide coverage through Fox/Murdoch empire and associates - BT do not have that outlet. I read a report the other day setting out that BT was putting great financial strain on the entire Group by paying for what they have now, that next year they would have to charge all users including broadband customers leading to a severe loss of custom and pulling out of the Sports TV market like ESPN and others have done before. The set up costs of setting up the infrastructure Sky have set up over the years could not be born by any other provider and if Sky pulled out the best that BT could do is arrange a deal to just televise and pay the big 6 - is that what you seriously want?
Whether it's value for money or not depends on how much of that you get to watch, and how much £24 a month is to you. Personally I only have a serious interest in watching the 50% of F1 the BBC doesn't have, and Norwich games (which Sky rarely show). I cannot justify £24 a month for that, so it's a rip off. If Sky did 1-match passes for say £2 a game, then they'd have my business. BT are the only alternative right now, and by creating competition for Sky they've increased the price of the TV rights (one factor amongst others). If Sky full-on withdraw from showing English football, the cost of the TV rights will fall dramatically. The Premier League aren't going to hold out for £3bn a year if nobody is prepared to pay it. If the cost diminishes, then who knows who might be in a position to bid for it? The cheaper the rights, and the fewer the competitors, then the greater the profit margins become for whoever steps up. And why on earth would BT only pay the big 6? For a start teams aren't allowed separate deals, and if they did it would have to be approved by a majority of Premier League clubs - which would never happen. The amount of money Premier League teams would make would drop, sure, but not in a way that could be passed on to fans. Sky is meant to be worth £60m(ish) a year to teams? To pass half of that onto fans would add £26 to each ticket. (Assuming 30,000 capacities). Never going to happen.
24 quid is cheaper than I Imagined - though only for half the games out here. I'm guessing however 1950s that some folk are still harking back to the days when MoTD was a staple and all live results came through teletext. So perhaps that extra 24 quid is too much on top of everything else? I know not...
And the players in league 2 would be on £200 a week - brilliant!! Encourage a whole new breed of youngsters into making a career in football wouldn't it!!
So the entire Sky Sports empire has got to be geared round your personal requirements? Realistic or what? Most people who love football watch other games in addition to the matches of the Club they support and most Sports lovers watch more than just football matches involving their own team and one other sport. I watch Cricket and golf in addition to ALL football matches and think that £6 a week for that is a bargain.
Not at all, Sky run their business very successfully, they can do what they like. What I'm saying is that my position is not a particularly unusual one, and if Sky were seriously worried about streaming, then they'd be prepared to offer an alternative package to tempt those who want to watch particular games, but cannot justify the cost of a full Sky package. £6 a week is great for you, £24 for a month of coverage unlikely to feature more than Norwich highlights, is exorbitant for me.
How will lower deals help the Clubs? Less income and none of it feeding down to the lower leagues - surely that will lead to higher admission prices rather than lower? How many Clubs could survive with drastically reduced incomes and how many would fold? Surely it would lead to more rich owners moving in which is far worse than Sky carrying on. BT, if they were left on their own, would not put up cameras and cover every league game in the Country and whilst Premier League rules prevent just coverage of certain Clubs at the minute rules can be changed especially if the Premier League is faced with a complete loss of income.
It looks like we will have to agree to disagree. I do think that your sport watching requirements are unusual and that it is unrealistic to expect Sky to formulate packages to suit the individual requirements. As a generality I do not think that Sky are ripping us off by charging less than the cost of 2 pints a week for all the sport they provide and I just don't understand the general point of view expressed in this thread that they are the devil incarnate ripping us off with over pricing.
I'm not arguing that lower deals will help clubs, just that if Sky were to pull out then it's highly unlikely that nobody will step up, even if they weren't paying as much. Should the TV income drop significantly, teams are going to have to adjust their budgets and rein in their spending, because (as I think I've demonstrated with the maths above), the drop in TV income would be far too massive to be recovered by an increase in ticket prices. Without Sky money the quality of the league would drop, rather than the price of tickets double. I'm not arguing that it'd be a good thing*, simply that without Sky, TV coverage of football wouldn't cease. I also don't see why a lack of Sky would make it significantly more difficult to watch highlights of lower leagues (because it's not like Sky broadcast league 2 games live as it is). For example the highlights that our club put up on youtube look to me as if they're shot with the clubs own cameras. (Below is an argument largely irrelevant to my main point) If the Premier League is faced with a huge drop in income, then they'd be mad to just help the top clubs to survive, even if they could avoid the vote of the other 14 clubs. One of the big selling points of the Premier League compared to say La Liga is how competitive it is. Further reduce that by screwing over everyone outside the top 6 and the interest in the league will fall much more. People would just watch the Champion's League than bother with Man City reserves thrashing Crystal Palace 10-0 in a league game. The Premier League would also be shooting themselves in the foot as it would strengthen the argument for a breakaway elite European league. *Actually, a weaker Premier League would probably help the national team as there'd be a greater focus on developing youngsters, and an easier route for them to play top flight football. We could potentially end up with a situation like that in the Netherlands and Belgium where the league is pretty weak, but the national team pretty strong as more academy players progress.
I should have agreed to disagree before I posted by reply above! I know I'm not that normal, but in the case of streaming I'd suspect people use it to follow a particular team, rather than to satisfy their desire to watch lots of high-quality sport easily. I doubt there's any stats to support/refute that argument though, so probably worth leaving it there!
You're never going to convince me that the way things are run is good for the sport. Sky is only out to make a profit off of it, they don't give a damn what happens to the clubs. And how much does Sky contribute to those in League 1 and 2? Because from what I remember it was pittance compared to even the money going into the Championship.
