"Gates may fall next term"

[GlossopLatic]

Your words which I've highlighted apply not only to us but to all clubs other than the existing top few in the Greedy League. As F Mr S says, it's predictable. You say ManUre and Chelski were getting beat by inferior teams last season. All that means is that more people tune in to MOTD on those occasions to see the big two getting beat. All that matters in reality is which teams win the games between the top four. The team which wins the most finishes top

 

Even when we were in the top flight Joe Royle described it as three leagues within a league - the only thing which has changed is that the likes of Derby County last season got millions for failing miserably, compared to the £75,000 during Latics' top-flight residence.

 

Sky TV must amount to great value compared to the cost of following lower division teams at home and away. What sickens me is that none of the crumbs form the greedy table fall into the bank accounts of the lesser clubs, without which there would not be England's fantastic football pyramid.

 

Sepp Blatter says the discussion on the 39th game has even suggested League Cup or F.A. Cup games being played abroad. I'm sure that will not be the likes of Dale v Latics or Chasetown v Port Vale, those cup games will be between two of the Greedy League teams.

 

Perhaps if supporters of the 72 non-Greedy League teams did not subscribe to Sky, consideration might be given to a fairer distribution of the TV cake, but I doubt it.

 

The case of Derby is interesting they didn't invest the millions they recieved into new playing talent which would have given them a better chance of staying up because it was too risky financially to the club.

 

Therefore in future tv contracts Sky and the FA will have to consider the fact that teams will quite happily except relegation and take the millions rather than compete. If that keeps happening then any fixtures involving such teams will attract low tv audiences and by the collective bargaining agreement each team has to be shown a minimum amount of times. Therefore its in the best interests of SKY to make sure that The Championship starts to get a fairer slice of the cake. Sky ofcourse won't just do this because its fair it doesn't work like that they will need to do it for good reason which effects them therefore if all the teams that come up in future just do a derby then that will have a big effect on TV audiences thats when the :censored: will hit the fan.

[wozz_oafc]

But it is predictable.

 

You can safely predict the top 4, and usually in the correct order. And the bottom 3 is usually a fairly safe bet too. Again, the teams in the middle, well you can pretty much split them into two groups of top half and bottom half and not get much wrong. It's crushingly predictable in fact.

 

People buy into it because the players within are 'superstars' who they want to see. And the bulk of the floating fans around the world are either Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal fans, so they tune in en masse to see their "hero's" play.

 

Until the clubs get less greedy, this is going to carry on until it cannot sustain itself here, and then games start getting played in fecking Dubai or suchlike, because fans there will happily pay £200 to watch it. Believe me, that idea got kyboshed straight away, but it'll resurface again in a few years time and it'll happen eventually.

 

FMS I thought that too but having got back from Croatia this week, the reasons they were giving for loving the premiership over their own domestic league was that theirs was far too predictible compared to ours. In their league there are only 2 teams in with a shout each season so having a top 4 makes ours seem much more competitive and I am sure this may well be the same in many other countries around the world hence why the premiership is so popular

[Diego_Sideburns]

The case of Derby is interesting they didn't invest the millions they recieved into new playing talent which would have given them a better chance of staying up because it was too risky financially to the club.

 

Therefore in future tv contracts Sky and the FA will have to consider the fact that teams will quite happily except relegation and take the millions rather than compete. If that keeps happening then any fixtures involving such teams will attract low tv audiences and by the collective bargaining agreement each team has to be shown a minimum amount of times. Therefore its in the best interests of SKY to make sure that The Championship starts to get a fairer slice of the cake. Sky ofcourse won't just do this because its fair it doesn't work like that they will need to do it for good reason which effects them therefore if all the teams that come up in future just do a derby then that will have a big effect on TV audiences thats when the :censored: will hit the fan.

 

In addition to the basic Sky millions which go to every club in the Greedy League, the bulk of the TV appearance money goes to the top four clubs and their opponents (the clubs expected to be relegated get their TV allocation under the collective bargaining agreement in games against the top clubs). The first SKY fixtures have been announced this afternoon - naturally they involve the top four from last season.

 

I believe that the world-wide Sky audience is quite happy watching the top four clubs run rings round the likes of Derby, rather than an evenly-matched game e.g. Fulham v Boro.

 

There must be at least a million SKY subscribers in towns trying to keep a club in the Football League. If they stopped subscribing, there would need to be a re-think about how the Greedy cake is cut up, but unfortunately that won't happen.

[boundaryblue80]

TBH, the "Sky football fan" is totally different to the likes of ourselves who go week in, week out. We can't really suggest that by stopping watching Sky things will come full circle....those who do watch it for their own club don't put any money into their own club whatsoever and probably wouldn't go if their team wasn't on.

 

Another point, it's clubs at the top who have the responsibility to cut the price of football down. But they won't. The last 2 deals that Sky have made with the Premier League both came with rumours of discontent that Sky wouldn't pay what the Clubs/players wanted. This has led to suggestions the players would strike. Basically, Sky are held to ransom and you could say "well don't pay it them then" but we're in the real world....Sky know they can milk their subscribers and advertisers and keep stumping up the cash. It's up to the Clubs to be responsible....but look at the strikes in Italy a few years back when they couldn't agree the TV deals.

 

I've now, finally, come around the way of thinking that the only way football prices are going to come down are if the top clubs finally get the wish to show their football matches on their own pay tv channel. The trend has come now for it to sadly be more fashionable to stay at home or in the pub and watch games. And so this will become the target market for clubs once they have their own TV station....that's where the cost will go and pay on the gate prices will fall. For example.....when it happens, Chelski TV and MUScum TV will see that although they can get 70+ thousand in through the gates on £600whatever season tickets, but the stay at home fan can be charged higher for watching it at home on a TV Season ticket....they won't have the travelling for away games and they'll have the experience they want from the very same mouldy old armchair. Only then will armchair fans pay for a ST and consider the cost of it as clubs target them and not so much the ones coming in through the gates.....it won't happen while Sky have their grip so even if it takes 10yrs, I'm hoping for the top clubs to win their battle for their own TV rights etc now.

[leeslover]

The effect of boycotting Sky would be to make the next TV rights tender less attractive to the bidding companies, which would mean the Premiership clubs would be in danger of not being able to afford to pay the contracts they signed up to in the expectation of the gravy train continuing. Bottom line is that Sky and the Premiership make far more money than Oldham because far more people are interested in watching them, be it on the TV or at the ground. The armchair viewer doesn’t want to pay his money over to Sky to subsidise us, and Sky don’t want to take their profits down to subsidise us. Remember it’s not money that has been taken away from us, our attendances are fairly normal across the decades given where we are and we never got huge TV money in the past, it’s just that the top teams and competitions have made themselves hugely more marketable than they used to be. It’s time to stop pointing the finger of blame, we have to sort ourselves out as best as we can and not rely on the big boys taking pity on us.