The EPL - beginning of the end ?

NIMAN

Of course the EPL will always be there, but I got to thinking recently about it as I have spoke to many of my friends and work colleagues, and there definitely seems to be a drop off in interest. The official viewing figures show a 19% decrease in viewers too.

I think there are many factors that are affecting it, such as:
- The price hikes from Sky to help finance their crazy money deal.
- Too many average games, the hype isn't working any more (see 'Red Monday')
- People no longer care about Middlesbrough v Everton and such like
- Mobiles, a large number of people actually watch their phone and the match at the same time, so the match is often not that important any more.
- The demographic that Sky captured so well over the last few decades got older, got married, had kids and now have plenty of other things to occupy their time (I probably fall into this category).
- The younger generation coming behind are more interested in social media than watching sport on TV. They won't view football the way we used to.

And I don't think this is confined to the EPL alone. The same views are often expressed about the CL. This really has little interest now for me (bar the odd big game) until maybe March time, once all the dross is long gone.

So do you still watch as much football as you used to?
Do you still think what Sky and the others serve up is entertaining?

Here's an article that kinda sums it all up
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brian-reade-column-stupor-sunday-9080748

Bowlardo

I think the other markets(asian, USA, other european countries) will make up for the drop off but I would agree that it is not that important to alot of younger viewers...still think there will always be the numbers to make it up but I would be in the same boat that I would not be too bothered by watching any matches other than my team....there are not too many teams that are exciting to watch

@#

Official viewing figures don't include mob&@# and similar.

Advertisers aren't overly bothered if their adds are viewed on the official outlets or not so TV revenues are safe enough IMO

corny

Its the product first and foremost IMO. The game has changed so much in the last decade or so. Its been sanitised to the point where there are just no characters anymore.

Also, the premium on physical fitness means there are just too many middle distance runners posing as footballers effecting the quality. Especially true when you go outside the top 5 or 6.

snaps

I haven't bothered this season, both with EPL and CL. Infact to be honest, I've gone old school and listen to commentarys on the radio now.

Dirty Dingus McGee

NFL in America is reporting a similar drop in viewership so I suspect this drop in EPL viewership is more about how people view matches these days i.e on-line and this not being captured by ratings like TV is.

I don't think the EPL is as good as it used to be the quality at the top end has fallen off and there isn't a great team in the league anymore whereas up to 2010 there was always at least one great team in the league.

In some ways although Leicester winning might initially seem like a great thing for the league I actually think it was a bad thing as they can't really expect people to buy the idea that the EPL is great when such a distinctly mediocre team ends up winning it.

I still enjoy watching but there is nothing special about a televised match anymore and so many of them are between mediocre team and I think this results in dropping interest as I would have been excited in the past about a televised match and watched because they were not as frequent and featuring more high quality teams than a Super Sunday consisting of Middlesborough V Watford followed by Southampton v Burnley (Sky really should have been sued for false advertising for that).What is seldom is wonderful.

PhlegmyMoses

Th PL needs to be watching Sky viewing figures like a hawk and be ready to shift with the times if Sky are not on the ball. I would argue that viewing figures are way up, it's just that way more people have access to streaming sites and consume their football that way. Interest is still there and using the Sky viewing figures for that is only getting half the story.

Reasonably priced business models that allow streaming, similar to Netflix for TV shows, need to be explored if Sky continue to piss in the wind and hike prices whilst bemoaning the advent of illegal streaming. The PL is the product and Sky need it more than it needs them. If they can find alternative methods of distribution whilst maintaining their profits, they'd be crazy not to shift.

Teenagers and young 20s is probably the smallest group I'd see at games from experience. Not sure was it always like that. Could be a cost thing.

Prices definitely putting more people off. Season tickets are probably average at least £700 and rising to way above that depending on who you support.

The growth in prices TV companies are paying isn't sustainable. Maybe it'd take one of the big TV companies going bust to bring the cards crashing down, who knows.

Regarding the poor games. Don't agree with that. I don't think the games are less entertaining than 10 or 20 years across the league. If anything it's far more competitive and any result can happen in any game.

Unearthly

The world is now shifting mobile so the EPL can't keep ignoring that. They will eventually need to provide legal streaming.

Sky's 4k isn't all that either. Looks prettier sure but sometimes it's hard to notice the difference from HD

Richard Hillman

To summarise the current situation: On Saturdays when I have access to all the premier league games, I prefer to watch people watch the games (Soccer Saturday) than the game themselves.

The games in this year's PL have been consistently dreadful. And the PL rules of having every team needed to be show x amount of times are making Super Sunday unwatchable.

The pace of Premier League games have been on decline year on year. All this possession based football has lead to very dull and defensive football.

The Premier League has turned into what Serie A became. And now Serie A is what the Premier League used to be. It's fast, it's open, it is exciting.

Saying all that though, streaming has played a big role in the reduction in the ratings. We can watch games in HD now and we can choose what game we want to watch.

The Premier League and Richard Scudamore are a bit prehistoric when it comes to the accessibility and scheduling of their games.

bucketybuck

They diluted their product, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that viewer figures were falling. Where once you might look forward to the Super Sunday or the Monday night games, now its friday night, saturday morning, saturday evening, sunday morning, sunday afternoon, monday evening and then cups and the champions league during the week. Why make time to watch a game when another will be along in ten minutes?

MD1990

Not the beginning of the end. But it has surely reached it's peak in terms of tv money.
I think generally people have a much shorter attention span now & maybe just prefer to just watch the goals or highlights.

Ulysses Gaze

If Sky offered the option of purchasing Sky Sports only at €20 a month they'd get more people viewing on TV. Particularly if there were an online option to do so. I won't pay for Sky because I'm not paying €90, or whatever it is, on a bunch of crap TV I won't watch. Ever.

I just want sports for La Liga, some EPL and the odd Rugby match.

Even better, if Sky offered a Season Ticket option for online viewing so that you could view all your favourite teams games then that would also appeal to people. Particularly if you priced it competitively at say €250/€300 a year.

bucketybuck

bucketybuck wrote: »

They diluted their product, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that viewer figures were falling. Where once you might look forward to the Super Sunday or the Monday night games, now its friday night, saturday morning, saturday evening, sunday morning, sunday afternoon, monday evening and then cups and the champions league during the week. Why make time to watch a game when another will be along in ten minutes?

Yep, viewing is down but subscriptions are steady so there's just so much to watch for people.

Richard Hillman

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

If Sky offered the option of purchasing Sky Sports only at €20 a month they'd get more people viewing on TV. Particularly if there were an online option to do so. I won't pay for Sky because I'm not paying €90, or whatever it is, on a bunch of crap TV I won't watch. Ever.

I just want sports for La Liga, some EPL and the odd Rugby match.

Even better, if Sky offered a Season Ticket option for online viewing so that you could view all your favourite teams games then that would also appeal to people. Particularly if you priced it competitively at say €250/€300 a year.

Sky used to have a monthly ticket service where you pay 50 a month for the sports channels and a few regular channels. No contract, just 50 a month and you can watch it on your Xbox or whatever device. They did away with it for some reason and never replaced it. So I turned to illegal streaming. Instead of 50 a month, I now give them 0 per month.

They have a service called NowTv in the UK which is the same premise as a no contract deal. They won't roll it out in Ireland because they know our market is so small for competition and can basically rip the piss with their overpriced service

Flint Fredstone

I don't know many people that pay for Sky Sports anymore.
I used to have the lot; Sky sports, Setanta sports, MUTV, movies, HD, 3D...
It was costing me €129 a month.

Now I have the basic subscription with just the kids channels as an extra for €40. All sports and movies are streamed on a HTPC giving me access to a much wider selection of matches. Nobody wants to pay upwards of €90 a week to watch the games that Sky choose for you.

eh i dunno

Very few decent matches on sky so far is the reason for the lower viewing figures. I have sky sports and most matches I can't be bothered with this season. Watch my own team and then the likes of Chelsea v utd today.

Boro v Southampton or Watford v Swansea has no appeal whatsoever. 5 minutes of highlights on motd is enough for those games. Think sky should look at a season ticket for each team. I'd pay a fiver a match for my teams games rather than 40 a month for 75% of matches that I wouldn't watch.

And the league is badly missing some big clubs like Newcastle, villa, Leeds etc.

Kerrydude1981

I got rid of Sky Sports at the start of last year,just kept the basic package and went down another route for the sports

Harry Palmr

I've long since thought clubs should run their own match distribution online with licensing deals for local TV markets as they deem appropriate.

duffman13

Competition is good usually but with BT and Sky diluting the coverage I can't justify paying the money anymore. Id happily pay 40 euro a month to be able to access any games I wanted to watch rather than the muck that gets served up as Super Sunday

mansize

Disgruntaled united fans not being the top dawg anymore imho

The product has always been over hyped

Flint Fredstone

mansize wrote: »

Disgruntaled united fans not being the top dawg anymore imho

The product has always been over hyped

Such nonsense.

KaiserGunner

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I've long since thought clubs should run their own match distribution online with licensing deals for local TV markets as they deem appropriate.

Didn't they do that (or still do) in La Liga, leading to the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona getting like 80% of the tv money whilst the other 20% going to the other 18 clubs. My figures are off just a guesstimate.

So if they did that in England it would be great for the likes of Liverpool and Man Utd etc, but not for the whole league.

KaiserGunner

KaiserGunner wrote: »

Didn't they do that (or still do) in La Liga, leading to the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona getting like 80% of the tv money whilst the other 20% going to the other 18 clubs. My figures are off just a guesstimate.

So if they did that in England it would be great for the likes of Liverpool and Man Utd etc, but not for the whole league.

Yep, it'd kill the smaller supported teams

Damien360

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I've long since thought clubs should run their own match distribution online with licensing deals for local TV markets as they deem appropriate.

The problem with that approach is each club would have to sort out advertising deals themselves. The current system, although flawed at least tries to share the lolly between all the clubs (not equally) but can you see the likes of Burnley getting any extra revenue if they went down that route. Very quickly it would turn into a two tier system looking like the Scottish PL where it is just 2 teams and then everyone else. The EPL is multiple tiered and is a little better.

Kirby

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Such nonsense.

It's really not nonsense. The bulk of the market is not the type who would visit this forum, watch every game, frequently get tickets to match days. The bulk of the audience is the casual fan. The type who hop on the bandwagon. When "their" team is no longer winning, they dont bother tuning in.

Football is not a special snowflake. This is the same for every sport. It's obviously not the only factor. People have made good points regarding price hikes, competition, saturation, quality, etc. They all matter. But you would be a fool to realize that viewing figures would be up if the most popular team in the world, Man United, were doing better.

Kirby

Kirby wrote: »

It's really not nonsense. The bulk of the market is not the type who would visit this forum, watch every game, frequently get tickets to match days. The bulk of the audience is the casual fan. The type who hop on the bandwagon. When "their" team is no longer winning, they dont bother tuning in.

Football is not a special snowflake. This is the same for every sport. It's obviously not the only factor. People have made good points regarding price hikes, competition, saturation, quality, etc. They all matter. But you would be a fool to realize that viewing figures would be up if the most popular team in the world, Man United, were doing better.

It's common sense tbh

ArmaniJeanss

KaiserGunner wrote: »

Didn't they do that (or still do) in La Liga, leading to the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona getting like 80% of the tv money whilst the other 20% going to the other 18 clubs. My figures are off just a guesstimate.

No, for the last few seasons Spanish TV money has been split between all clubs on similar lines to the EPL, guaranteeing every club a high base figure.

Oat23

I know a ton of people that got rid of Sky because it's a complete ripoff, but they are all still passionate about the EPL.

Beginning of the end for EPL on Sky maybe, but not the EPL itself.

brevity

Ken Early wrote a good article a few days ago on a similar topic:

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/english-soccer/ken-early-you-can-watch-nothing-and-yet-miss-nothing-1.2832070

Flint Fredstone

Kirby wrote: »

It's really not nonsense. The bulk of the market is not the type who would visit this forum, watch every game, frequently get tickets to match days. The bulk of the audience is the casual fan. The type who hop on the bandwagon. When "their" team is no longer winning, they dont bother tuning in.

Football is not a special snowflake. This is the same for every sport. It's obviously not the only factor. People have made good points regarding price hikes, competition, saturation, quality, etc. They all matter. But you would be a fool to realize that viewing figures would be up if the most popular team in the world, Man United, were doing better.

I don't believe that to be the case and there's no real way of proving or disproving it. Bandwagon fans tend to latch on to the next bandwagon. There's a lot more City and Chelsea fans about nowadays. There's even a lot more Liverpool fans about when they're doing well.

Android boxes are the biggest factor in the drop in Sky viewing figures. It's plain as day.

LiamoSail

With the exception of United and Arsenal, I reckon every club in the league would be on the brink if the TV revenue disappeared, given it makes up such a high percentage of club's revenue.

As the league as a whole is so reliant on it, they need to be very careful how they adapt to the advent of streaming etc. A 20% drop in viewing figures is significant, and there's nothing to say that won't increase as streaming becomes more popular, reliable and accessible. It'd be foolish to think that won't have a significant impact on the value of the next TV deal

klose

I on and off subscribe to sky sports, any time i call to cancel they always offer a deal of some sort. Would not be able to have it full price all year round though. I think the emergence of those android/sky box things is always a big factor in the viewing % going down.

joshrogan

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/80917000/jpg/_80917618_rise_tvincome.jpg

Brexit, loss in viewership, clubs spending insane money. The bubble is gonna burst in the 2020s IMO

ArmaniJeanss

NIMAN wrote: »

The official viewing figures show a 19% decrease in viewers too.

Where are these official figures?
Every page where it's discussed seems to link back to an article in the Daily Mail where the 19% drop was first mentioned but this article had no mention of where they are getting the figure from, or what they were comparing (match average, programme average, peak viewing? Something like programme average would get skewed downwards by the ludicrous 90 min walkin they are giving to Friday games.)
It's fairly terrible to base a topic on something which possibly only exists in the mind of a Daily Fail journalist.

Riesen_Meal

Feck Sky, I've always used pay for stream's the last few years, quality is pretty much same as Sky and I don't miss the matches I want to see if they are "not on TV"...

I've recently moved to a full IPTV setup in house and have about 2K channels from all over the world should I need to watch anything not on UK TV...

I would gladly pay for something legal if it was offered, until then, I'll stick with what I have...

Harry Palmr

Presumably someone has access to BARB's detailed figures.

thebaz

its always so popular here to snide at the Premeirship , yet so many of the threads are about the Premiership - it is a guilty pleasure , I love league of Ireland too, and the over inflated wages grate on me, but the Premiership is great television, the Leicester story , Many City at QPR, Arsenal winning the league back in '89 - even in Europe , the English teams bring out the best excitement , United in '99, Liverpool in Istanbul - get over it, people like it.

Richard Hillman

Twitter and Facebook will enter the market soon. Twitter are already covering NFL games on Thursday.

What I am sure is that is the beginning of the end of the likes of Sky and their style of Pay TV. And the premier league clubs will suffer greatly if they have a dinosaur like Richard Scudamore steering the ship who fancies his chances against the Streaming Iceberg.

Facebook can feed into a potential audience of 1bn people. Imagine the advertising revenue and viewing figures they can access from just covering run of the mill games.

LiamoSail

Whatever about streaming, that Mourinho song they're showing the Chelsea fans singing on the SSN loop should knock another 20% off the viewing figures. It's pathetic

Billy86

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Even better, if Sky offered a Season Ticket option for online viewing so that you could view all your favourite teams games then that would also appeal to people. Particularly if you priced it competitively at say €250/€300 a year.

The NFL started doing this a few years ago with 'NFL Gamepass' and while the league is only 16 weeks + 4 more for the playoffs (before anyone balks, check out the injury lists by the end of the preseason!) they offer all games at I believe about $300/yr. I got it the two seasons for this (wasn't in the budget this year, sadly) and it's absolutely fantastic - all games live, a live highlights package as it happens, plenty of analysis of games during the week, a wide range of documentaries and such relating to the sport available to view when the games aren't on and at your own convenience - e.g. like Netflix rather than being scheduled.

The Premier League will be down that route in the next 5 years or so, and if they're not, they are absolute fools who will be made to pay for it. Would be very interesting to see how they would do compared to the current set up if they did say €5 a game, €20 for a week, €250-300 for one team for the year, or €1,000 or so for the full league for the year. Number plucked out of my arse right there, but you get the idea.

EDIT: The above is in addition to FOX/CBS/ESPN/etc showing live games - as best I remember a game being live on TV doesn't impact if it is shown on Gamepass or not.

Corholio

Streaming online is certainly one of the biggest factors to Sky's drop in figures.

Personally, there's been a massive saturation in games the last couple of years. Matches on every day of the week has made Saturdays and even Monday nights lose a bit of that looking forward to sparkle. I know it's the way has gone and the way it probably has had to go but the Premier League on tv was quite specific on when you could watch it. I know some feel that restricts the viewing but to me it made it less of a spectacle when there is matches on every day of the week in all competitions. I don't mind watching the Watford v Stoke type matches at all, a lot of them are better than so called bigger matches, it's more the League's viewing importance during a week has been diminished imo.

SantryRed

Billy86 wrote: »

The NFL started doing this a few years ago with 'NFL Gamepass' and while the league is only 16 weeks + 4 more for the playoffs (before anyone balks, check out the injury lists by the end of the preseason!) they offer all games at I believe about $300/yr. I got it the two seasons for this (wasn't in the budget this year, sadly) and it's absolutely fantastic - all games live, a live highlights package as it happens, plenty of analysis of games during the week, a wide range of documentaries and such relating to the sport available to view when the games aren't on and at your own convenience - e.g. like Netflix rather than being scheduled.

The Premier League will be down that route in the next 5 years or so, and if they're not, they are absolute fools who will be made to pay for it. Would be very interesting to see how they would do compared to the current set up if they did say €5 a game, €20 for a week, €250-300 for one team for the year, or €1,000 or so for the full league for the year. Number plucked out of my arse right there, but you get the idea.

EDIT: The above is in addition to FOX/CBS/ESPN/etc showing live games - as best I remember a game being live on TV doesn't impact if it is shown on Gamepass or not.

You got to remember that Gamepass isn't available within the United States though.

Also, it's in UK law that live football can't be shown between 2:45-5:15 and that is completely the right thing to do. I can see the package being available internationally soon enough though. NBC already offer this service in the States.

Most people are looking at this from the view of people in Ireland whereas it's more important to view it from the people actually living within the UK.

Billy86

SantryRed wrote: »

You got to remember that Gamepass isn't available within the United States though.

Also, it's in UK law that live football can't be shown between 2:45-5:15 and that is completely the right thing to do. I can see the package being available internationally soon enough though. NBC already offer this service in the States.

Most people are looking at this from the view of people in Ireland whereas it's more important to view it from the people actually living within the UK.

Wow really? Never knew that about Gamepass!

Though in this day an age, most important is probably the global market - or those that can fit within whatever boundaries, assuming they are large enough markets (e.g. US/Asia).

atilladehun

I only watch Liverpool games. There's No way I'm paying to watch any other game. I can't pay just for all the Liverpool games then I'm not paying for anything.

niallo27

If sky figured out how to stop cardsharing then we would see a significant rise in sports subscriptions. These dodgy box's are everywhere these days.

Cantona's Collars

An interesting comment was made on Off The Ball, Sky are obliged to show even the smaller games ala last Sunday.They'll get them out of the way early in the season which leaves them the pick of the teams challenging for the title at the business end of the season.
As somebody said earlier in the thread,the focus seems to be on how many km's players run opposed to actually playing football.No matter how much you run,the ball will always move faster than you.Get the focus back to playing football rather than worrying about stopping the opposition and people will return to watching the game.

SantryRed

Billy86 wrote: »

Wow really? Never knew that about Gamepass!

Though in this day an age, most important is probably the global market - or those that can fit within whatever boundaries, assuming they are large enough markets (e.g. US/Asia).

Well unless it has changed recently I'm almost certain it's not available.

Completely agree with you regarding the global markets though, they are the most important. It'll be interesting to see what price the rights go for when they're up for tender again in the coming years.

Duck Soup

It's the product. Yesterday I had a choice of about 7 or 8 EPL games to watch, none of which piqued my interest. A quick look around and I saw Valencia vs Barca was on. Thought that sounded good; turned out to be a cracking game. Nothing in the EPL comes close.

citytillidie

duffman13 wrote: »

Competition is good usually but with BT and Sky diluting the coverage I can't justify paying the money anymore. Id happily pay 40 euro a month to be able to access any games I wanted to watch rather than the muck that gets served up as Super Sunday

But that is not true competition. True competition would be both BT and Sky showing the same games and leaving it for the people to pay what company they want to to watch it

LuckyLloyd

US sports are way ahead in terms of offering subscription based on demand viewing options. But they do exist in a different context of collective bargaining agreements; revenue sharing models and a much more mature market.

Eventually I'll be able to buy an EPL and CL package where I stream the games I want in HD and highlight packages are available in an archive. And I'll happily pay a reasonable amount for such a service. I don't want ads. I don't want ****ty studio analysis at HT. I don't want to have games chosen for me. I don't want to watch MOTD. I guess there are many who feel the way I do.

Unfortunately we'll have to wait for one of Sky or BT to fail (and they will) first, as there is so much invested and staked on the current model. It's just a gouge of the end consumer ultimately. Three separate subscriptions to see everything? When the CL and Ireland matches are free to air and you can get a stream fairly reliably these days for everything else and will probably pop over to a friends or down the pub for a bigger game anyway? **** that.