The EPL - beginning of the end ?

mansize

Love the quasi justification for illegal streams lol

niallo27

mansize wrote: »

Love the quasi justification for illegal streams lol

Is there any justification for the prices they charge.

mansize

niallo27 wrote: »

Is there any justification for the prices they charge.

The amount they have to pay for rights???

Ulysses Gaze

mansize wrote: »

The amount they have to pay for rights???

Not dictated by the public though.

That's their, Sky & BTs, own faults.

Royale with Cheese

I've often thought we've reached the peak of how much money there will be in football. It's so easy to stream the games, in really good quality, I just don't see why anyone would pay what sky are charging. I was amazed when that new TV deal was signed for so much, but I'd be really amazed if the next one went up again.

The main problems are Sky making you pay for a basic tv package you don't want before actually getting the sports channels. Anti monopoly laws meaning you now need to pay for two separate sports packages to get all the games. The group stages of the champions league are mostly tedious, hard to believe they used to have two groups stages. I'd be in favour of going back to a pure knockout format.

And in general the gap between the top teams and the rest has just been getting bigger and bigger with the more money that's pumped into the game. Twenty odd years ago you had the likes of Ajax winning the champions league, that's never going to happen again. I'd be happy to see official viewing figures drop off and the money floating around the game decrease. It would be better for everyone involved bar the players/agents.

rossie1977

As long as two companies are bidding over the tv rights there is alot of juice in the pl yet

Us sports (nba, mlb, nascar and nhl) have had anaemic tv viewership for years until the latter stages of the playoffs and yet the tv networks in the us are falling over themselves to give those sports bigger tv contracts each time they come due..live sports rights will become more valuable over the next decade not less so

Billy86

mansize wrote: »

Love the quasi justification for illegal streams lol

Kind of like when the music industry were gouging the life out of customers in the late 90s and then got completely blindsided by Napster... I actually quite like to see such an huge transfer of power from the provider to the consumer, myself. It forces change that would simply never even be entertained otherwise.

Dirty Dingus McGee

mansize wrote: »

The amount they have to pay for rights???

But Sky grossly overpaid for the domestic rights they bought.

Unless the population of the UK increased by 70% doubled it wasn't worthwhile the 2 bidders paying 70% more for the newest batch of TV rights compared to the previous TV deal.

Sky have lost out on some events because they overpaid for the premier league rights.

Fr Tod Umptious

Some interesting opinions here.

I'm in the same demographic as the OP.
Family life has resulted in a huge decline in interest in the EPL.

Sky, or BTs price will never come down to such a level that it just an afterthought to most people, it will always be a premium product, whether on TV or online.
Sky and BT have paid too much to sell it on the cheap.

I think the decline in numbers has something to do with the way people now consume sports.
Younger people especially no longer just sit down and watch a 2 hour sports event without engaging in some other way with it, be that looking a twitter to see what someone has to say about it, a betting app to see the odds, or checking the score of another game.

So the single, low profile or hyped up, game at a given time each week is not on it own as important as before.

This is where Red Zone has worked so well in the NFL, why commit to one game when you can simultaneously see the important parts of all the games.

I'm not sure how much illegal steaming is impacting numbers as much as people think, the quality is usually very poor and there is no consistencey.
I'm a techie and I hate trying to fond decent streams, its a pain in the hole for non techies, most would jump at a proper subscription were is reasonably priced in their eyes.

thebaz

another reason for the popularity of the league is its openness - a quarter way into the season , any of 6 teams could win it , 1 point separating top 5 - is any other major league so open ?
The money gets spread out, helping smaller clubs *somewhat) , more than other leagues - which is good league itself.

Dirty Dingus McGee

thebaz wrote: »

another reason for the popularity of the league is its openness - a quarter way into the season , any of 6 teams could win it , 1 point separating top 5 - is any other major league so open ?
The money gets spread out, helping smaller clubs *somewhat) , more than other leagues - which is good league itself.

It was never this open when the quality was high.You had 3 or 4 teams at most who you thought could contend and by November it was usually down to 2 teams at most.

The openness in the last couple of seasons is because of the lack of quality in the league compared to where it was in the past.Any team who won the league from about 1998 up to 2010 or so would have walked last years competition and would walk this years as well and I'd say the big 3 in Spain,Juve and Bayern would win it with a bit to spare also.

The Bundesliga was really competitive from about 2002-2010 but that was because the overall quality at the top end dipped and it made it easier for teams to contend,( it's not as competitive now because it has one brilliant team and another team who aren't far off that level on their day).The EPL has went through a a similar period in the last few seasons.

Sprinting for the last 10 years or so would have been very competitive if Usain Bolt didn't exist.

thebaz

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Sprinting for the last 10 years or so would have been very competitive if Usain Bolt didn't exist.

that is the problem with Spanish football, the top 2 are so much better , they get a much bigger slice of the money - the way the Premiership share TV money is much fairer - bar apart form Hull, anyone in the league can beat anyone or scrap a draw , that appeals to me and many others. Its why I find Scotish football so boring, Celtic are so many light years ahead of anyone

SantryRed

thebaz wrote: »

that is the problem with Spanish football, the top 2 are so much better , they get a much bigger slice of the money - the way the Premiership share TV money is much fairer - bar apart form Hull, anyone in the league can beat anyone or scrap a draw , that appeals to me and many others. Its why I find Scotish football so boring, Celtic are so many light years ahead of anyone

Jesus Christ, have you read any of this thread?

Dirty Dingus McGee

thebaz wrote: »

that is the problem with Spanish football, the top 2 are so much better , they get a much bigger slice of the money - the way the Premiership share TV money is much fairer - bar apart form Hull, anyone in the league can beat anyone or scrap a draw , that appeals to me and many others. Its why I find Scotish football so boring, Celtic are so many light years ahead of anyone

The quality is poor in Scotland which is the worst thing about it.It was decent enough in the late 90's early 00's.

Francie Barrett

atilladehun wrote: »

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.

Ditto, it's why I cancelled my Sky two years ago. When you can stream all the Liverpool games off the internet for free, why bother paying for a package where you're lucky to get 1/4 of the games you are actually interested in? The business model that Sky have where you're forced to pay money for a load of crap you're not interested in to get a subset of the games you can watch is broken.

mansize

Fieldog wrote: »

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...

How much would you pay?

Muahahaha

Billy86 wrote: »

Kind of like when the music industry were gouging the life out of customers in the late 90s and then got completely blindsided by Napster... I actually quite like to see such an huge transfer of power from the provider to the consumer, myself. It forces change that would simply never even be entertained otherwise.

I think there are serious parallels between the music industry 10 years ago and the EPL right now. As you say Napster blindsided the music industry as people were sick of paying €15+ a CD so the advent of MP3 was a game changer. The music industry resisted for several years with lawsuits flying around the place. But eventually they just had to accept that technology over took them and they then changed tack and started selling music rights to the likes of Spotify and Deeer, Amazon and Google music. Millions of people who used to rip songs off the web for free now pay Spotify for their premium service which goes to show that if you make a user friendly app and give people what they want they wont bother going to the hassle and risks of viruses to download it for free.

Sky and the EPL are in much the same boat as the music industry was 10 years ago. Their gouging of customers mean more and more are turning to free streaming as the quality is good and sites arent hard to find. IMO Sky need to go down the Spotify route and offer some sort of steaming package. But the question is at what price point? Dropping their prices would gain many more customers but the only problem is that the sheer expense of that latest tv deal most likely means they have no room for manouvre to drop prices. If streaming keeps growing at the pace it has been then Sky may eventually have their hands forced as they try to capture these customers back.

Billy86

Muahahaha wrote: »

I think there are serious parallels between the music industry 10 years ago and the EPL right now. As you say Napster blindsided the music industry as people were sick of paying €15+ a CD so the advent of MP3 was a game changer. The music industry resisted for several years with lawsuits flying around the place. But eventually they just had to accept that technology over took them and they then changed tack and started selling music rights to the likes of Spotify and Deeer, Amazon and Google music. Millions of people who used to rip songs off the web for free now pay Spotify for their premium service which goes to show that if you make a user friendly app and give people what they want they wont bother going to the hassle and risks of viruses to download it for free.

Sky and the EPL are in much the same boat as the music industry was 10 years ago. Their gouging of customers mean more and more are turning to free streaming as the quality is good and sites arent hard to find. IMO Sky need to go down the Spotify route and offer some sort of steaming package. But the question is at what price point? Dropping their prices would gain many more customers but the only problem is that the sheer expense of that latest tv deal most likely means they have no room for manouvre to drop prices. If streaming keeps growing at the pace it has been then Sky may eventually have their hands forced as they try to capture these customers back.

Unsure on how the finances would work out but, can someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I have a memory of new albums being £/€25-30 right around the turn of the century. I was 14 when it turned 2000, and remember not just thinking "what a ripoff" but "where would I even get all that money from in the first place!?" €30 in February 2002 allowing for inflation would be about €38.10 today, apparently.

Was that a thing or is my mind just playing tricks on me?

NIMAN

brevity wrote: »

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

Yeah I also read that piece last week as well, 100% agree with it too.

I am sure that the powers that be at Sky TV and the like are already thinking of the future and how people will consume their product. As I said, my life has changed where I no longer sit down to an EPL game unless its a really big one involving the top teams. And these are getting less, as I get served up more rubbish games at the top of the league. Its easy to forget about football when you have kids and have many other things to do. 2hrs to sit on the sofa and do nothing is a luxury you don't want to waste!

But the big thing will be the next generation. They simply won't be sofa watchers of football. They will be surfing, interacting, discussing it, betting on it etc and not giving it their undivided attention. Some would say that it won't mean as much to them as it did to previous generations.

I think not only the transmission of football, but football itself has a battle on its hands to retain interest levels among the population.

Riesen_Meal

mansize wrote: »

How much would you pay?

I currently pay about 60 for 6 month's, or 100 per year...

I'd pay more for something legit though if it was offered...

Muahahaha

Billy86 wrote: »

Unsure on how the finances would work out but, can someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I have a memory of new albums being £/€25-30 right around the turn of the century. I was 14 when it turned 2000, and remember not just thinking "what a ripoff" but "where would I even get all that money from in the first place!?" €30 in February 2002 allowing for inflation would be about €38.10 today, apparently.

Was that a thing or is my mind just playing tricks on me?

Nope, your mind wasnt playing tricks. I remember sometime around 2002 or 03 U2 released a new album and the price was €26 in HMV Grafton St. iirc REM released an album the same year and it was a similar price. But I dont think all new relases had prices that high, iirc €15-18 was the norm during the Celtic Tiger.

HMV price gouged for years and got away with it. But people still resented them for it so when the MP3 came along people deserted HMV in droves. There was a few years when they survived by selling DVDs which they price gouged on too at €25-30 for a single movie. But then Tesco smashed their grip of the market and started offering mainstream DVDs for €7.99 upwards. Once HMV lost the DVD market the game was up and they went into receivership. Apart from audiophiles who still bought records and those into niche genres like world music their entire mainstream market dried up in a matter of years. Because they had price gouged for so long the vast majority of people had no brand loyalty towards HMV. Students of business strategy will in future years study how HMV were on a good thing and then stuffed it up themselves by price gouging and not moving forward with technology. There was a time they had a firm grip on music sales but the allowed they likes of Spotify come in and steal their clothes without even putting up a fight. HMV had all the contacts they needed with Sony, Universal Music, etc to thrash out a licensing deal and create their own digital music platform. But they stood still and allowed Spotify to do exactly that and now HMV (as we knew them) are all but finished and Spotify is valued in the billions. Some turnaround really.

citytillidie

rossie1977 wrote: »

As long as two companies are bidding over the tv rights there is alot of juice in the pl yet

Us sports (nba, mlb, nascar and nhl) have had anaemic tv viewership for years until the latter stages of the playoffs and yet the tv networks in the us are falling over themselves to give those sports bigger tv contracts each time they come due..live sports rights will become more valuable over the next decade not less so

Live sports is where the advertisements are now with the advent of recording boxes people are watch less "live" tv so they can fast forward those adverts. You will get very few people who will not watch sports live so rights will only keep going up to get those prime advert spots i say that is why Sky now have longer build up programs to get more break in.

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Some interesting opinions here.

I'm in the same demographic as the OP.
Family life has resulted in a huge decline in interest in the EPL.

Sky, or BTs price will never come down to such a level that it just an afterthought to most people, it will always be a premium product, whether on TV or online.
Sky and BT have paid too much to sell it on the cheap.

I think the decline in numbers has something to do with the way people now consume sports.
Younger people especially no longer just sit down and watch a 2 hour sports event without engaging in some other way with it, be that looking a twitter to see what someone has to say about it, a betting app to see the odds, or checking the score of another game.

So the single, low profile or hyped up, game at a given time each week is not on it own as important as before.

This is where Red Zone has worked so well in the NFL, why commit to one game when you can simultaneously see the important parts of all the games.

I'm not sure how much illegal steaming is impacting numbers as much as people think, the quality is usually very poor and there is no consistencey.
I'm a techie and I hate trying to fond decent streams, its a pain in the hole for non techies, most would jump at a proper subscription were is reasonably priced in their eyes.

Red zone works for the NFL as that game is very stop start, the goals show by BT is very good for the Champions League

thebaz

SantryRed wrote: »

Jesus Christ, have you read any of this thread?

touched a nerve or something - **** sake , there is eneogh mods here

Fr Tod Umptious

I'm not sure the music industry example works that well with Sky and illegal streaming.

Napster was free and gave instant gratification, your song was there to listen to, and the quality was good.

With illegal streaming the free ones are difficult to find good quality and with the paid ones you are running the risk of not having a stream one day because the operation has been shut down or the supplier has absconded with your and everyone else's subs.

EPL will defiantly go online, but it will be a premium product.

Muahahaha

Its a fair point Fr.Tod, illegal streaming is not hassle free and you often have to settle for a SD stream. But if you bookmark free sites with reliable enough operations youll usually get a decent HD stream. Sometimes it will go down but youve got other sites bookmarked in case that happens. Its not perfect but neither is paying Sky and BT large sums of hard earned every year either for many people.

The problem for a sizeable minority is that the cost of a Sky sub has risen far above what some are willing to pay for it. Like if you want Sky Sports you have to get the basic package and then an add on, bringing it to something like €65 a month. No way am I paying that every month to watch something like 1 or maybe 2 games where they are showing the team I follow. To me it just aint worth it. Obviously to many others they will watch all leagues of football it is totally worth it and they just couldnt do without their Sky Sports fix.

They will have to introduce a streaming service like Netflix because clearly the market is demanding it. People would be willing to pay for a season ticket to watch all their teams games without the hassle of depending on dodgy streams. The technology and capacity to do so is already here but Sky are dragging their heels, perhaps because they dont want to cheapen their product after paying such a mammoth fee to the TV rights. But they may eventually have their hands forced because illegal streaming isnt going anywhere and they simply cannot combat it by legal means alone. Once they close one down another pops up to take its place. They will eventually have no choice but to respond to what the market wants, just like the music industry had to even if it did take them about 10 years of kicking and screaming.

Pudders

I live in London but I have sky sports on the mobile for 5 per month all the sports channels through Vodafone.

They are already tackling different revenue streams and channels which may not be on offer in Ireland.

Fr Tod Umptious

Muahahaha wrote: »

Its a fair point Fr.Tod, illegal streaming is not hassle free and you often have to settle for a SD stream. But if you bookmark free sites with reliable enough operations youll usually get a decent HD stream. Sometimes it will go down but youve got other sites bookmarked in case that happens. Its not perfect but neither is paying Sky and BT large sums of hard earned every year either for many people.

The problem for a sizeable minority is that the cost of a Sky sub has risen far above what some are willing to pay for it. Like if you want Sky Sports you have to get the basic package and then an add on, bringing it to something like €65 a month. No way am I paying that every month to watch something like 1 or maybe 2 games where they are showing the team I follow. To me it just aint worth it. Obviously to many others they will watch all leagues of football it is totally worth it and they just couldnt do without their Sky Sports fix.

They will have to introduce a streaming service like Netflix because clearly the market is demanding it. People would be willing to pay for a season ticket to watch all their teams games without the hassle of depending on dodgy streams. The technology and capacity to do so is already here but Sky are dragging their heels, perhaps because they dont want to cheapen their product after paying such a mammoth fee to the TV rights. But they may eventually have their hands forced because illegal streaming isnt going anywhere and they simply cannot combat it by legal means alone. Once they close one down another pops up to take its place. They will eventually have no choice but to respond to what the market wants, just like the music industry had to even if it did take them about 10 years of kicking and screaming.

But its not Sky or BT as such that are dragging their heels, its the EPL.

Sky and BT have paid for TV rights for a certain number of games, the onus is not on them to make more available on line.

Its up to the EPL to come up with an online package that providers can then bid to host.

How that online package is going to work without reducing the value of the TV packages that are also on offer waits to be seen.

niallo27

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I'm not sure the music industry example works that well with Sky and illegal streaming.

Napster was free and gave instant gratification, your song was there to listen to, and the quality was good.

With illegal streaming the free ones are difficult to find good quality and with the paid ones you are running the risk of not having a stream one day because the operation has been shut down or the supplier has absconded with your and everyone else's subs.

EPL will defiantly go online, but it will be a premium product.

I have a great iptv service. It's 18 pound a month. I get every match in HD that's on any station that's showing football. I don't mind paying for a service. I only pay monthly as well so if it goes tits up I only lose 18 pound.

fyfe79

NIMAN wrote: »

But the big thing will be the next generation. They simply won't be sofa watchers of football. They will be surfing, interacting, discussing it, betting on it etc and not giving it their undivided attention. Some would say that it won't mean as much to them as it did to previous generations.

I think not only the transmission of football, but football itself has a battle on its hands to retain interest levels among the population.

Already happening with this generation. Match day threads on boards for example - people watching the game live and commenting as it happens. I used to think it was just lads watching at home but I see pub-goers doing the same thing, even when physically among friends. But if you ask the older generation (auld lads now) who would attend games every Saturday, they would think watching it on TV is a disassociated step.

The world changes and is probably cyclical - look at young people going back to vinyl. The desire for a physical product and the ability use it as a badge to show your identity... to have a music collection to show off, rather than non-descript files on an ipod or HD.

Maybe eventually in the football world, people will get sick of the uber-commercialism of the elite leagues and actually start attending local games again for that 'real' buzz, even if the quality on the pitch may be lacking. I'm not talking any time very soon, but maybe the next generation will do so again to once again identify with a football club and metaphorically wear their close affiliation with their local team as a badge of honour.

lawred2

I watch the odd Everton game online... Totally in isolation. Wouldn't have any interest in any other game during the weekend. Wouldn't even know results from the weekend just done. I don't care. The childish love of the game is well and truly gone.

Heard something over the last few days about some club or other putting a salary 'cap' in place for under 17s.

40k a week.

Fck that.

Guy:Incognito

my local tesco aren't making as much as they used to. I didn't feel like buying food anymore so me and a load of others just steal it instead.

Dont be at yourself

BT and Sky will continue to pay enormous money for sports rights, as they're an effective way of tying users into their phone/broadband/TV ecosystem.

The issue is, consumer behaviour is changing. TV viewership is in decline across the board, and people are increasingly moving to digital, mobile and time-shifted viewing.

It's striking that Sky called out illegal streams as a factor in their declining viewership. Like with mp3s, the appeal is not just that they're free, it's that they better meet the consumption habits of their audience. It beggars belief that despite forking over €1K a year to Sky and BT, there are many weekends where my team won't be shown live.

My predictions:
- YouTube, Twitter & Facebook to bid for the next round of rights or highlights.
- American-owned clubs, most prominently Liverpool, to attempt to abandon the pooled TV deal and offer their own over-the-top service direct to fans.

CalamariFritti

Soccer and the EPL/CL is a good and popular product but its in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. Soccer every day of the week numbs down even the hardiest fans over time. Add to that the ridiculous money - both on a larger scale - 50 million fee plus 100k per week for an average PL prospect, seriously? And also on the small time scale, 60 something euro for Sky Sports then maybe another 20 something for BT? Sky is looking for another €5.50 increase starting December. Its just too much. Where I work and live I seem to be the only guy who actually has Sky Sports proper. Everyone else has a dodgy box of some description.

Its the same problem we have with almost everything in life/business these days. One cannot be content with having a good thing going and making good money. Everything (especially profits) has to be further, wider, harder, more more more every year. If something stays the same for more than 2 years its viewed as stagnating rather than being solid. So they negotiate a bigger deal, pay bigger wages, show more matches, increase the prices. But eventually a saturation point will be reached and there are no more increases to be squeezed out of it. People are getting fed up.

Without wanting to get too philosophical or political about it this is really a systemic problem with our western economies/societies. Everything is supposed to be growing all the time even though a six year old would understand that this is not possible. But we just ignore that little fact and keep beating the horse.

batistuta9

that article in the mail is a bit misleading, he's comparing a subscription service to the public service/freeview channels in the UK, of course they're going to have far more viewers.

the 19% drop, nobody knows what this drop is on like some other poster said.
sky now have the saturday lunchtime slot, which is the worst for viewing figures and the more matches you show the harder it's to keep your average anyway.

then what kind of teams have they shown? there's a lot of teams who'd have no really appeal outside their region - stoke, wba, bournmouth, burnley - to the more casual viewers. obviously the name of the team doesn't determine the quality of the game but that's the way it is.
seen on digital spy, red monday :pac: pulled in the biggest aducience of the season, 2.7m avg. 3.1 peak, second was the manchester derby 1.7m
https://twitter.com/SB_Intelligence

i'd agree with a lot of the opinions on the thread though, the older people get or the more life gets in the way the less time will spend on football, it stops becoming the obsession it once was.
practically anyone who can use a computer can watch any game they want, in pretty decent quality especially if you're a supporter of a big club.

but there's still a massive appetite for football, look at west ham selling out the new stadium, spurs selling out wembley for the CL & they'll do the same in the new whl. newcastle had the 4th highest attendance in europe a week or two ago

pricing structures could do with tweaking but for the PL, the domestic rights are the goose that laid the golden egg, they've no need to go online in the UK yet. BT getting involved has helped that, PL will keep releasing more games to them to keep it driving up. you can already watch any PL match online in loads of countries, the overseas tv deals is where they can really make more money

Kirby

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

my local tesco aren't making as much as they used to. I didn't feel like buying food anymore so me and a load of others just steal it instead.

Food has a quantifiable, physical value. 5 people using illegal streams and 50,000 people using them isnt removing/taking/costing Sky or BT sports a cent, unlike you stealing food as that store is losing an item they can no longer sell.

I pay for Sky/BT/setanta all of it and have done for donkeys years. I dont watch streams as I like my picture crisp and clear. But even so, your analogy is just way off. People need to stop equating copyright infringement to theft. They are not the same thing.

SantryRed

thebaz wrote: »

touched a nerve or something - **** sake , there is eneogh mods here

If you have read the thread, you would have seen it was discussed that La Liga now has equal TV money sharing.

mikeym

A lot of good points made so far.

Its very expensive to watch live Premier league football these days.

Sky make the situation worse by increasing prices every year and they are happy to fleece subscribers.

If you have a family and commitments this can be a strain on your fiances.

Irish fans in general love watching live matches but have to resort to watching streams online if their team is not being shown live on 3pm.

Sky should be allowed show multiple games to Irish viewers every Saturday at 3pm.

The Premier League needs to move with the times and offer an online service to overseas viewers(including Ireland) similar to Premier League Pass in New Zealand.

But they wont because they sell the exclusive rights to TV companies for huge money.

Not many people can afford to pay over 1k a year in subscription fees to Sky and Eir Sport and no wonder people are either watching streams from an android box or a card sharing box.

Riesen_Meal

niallo27 wrote: »

I have a great iptv service. It's 18 pound a month. I get every match in HD that's on any station that's showing football. I don't mind paying for a service. I only pay monthly as well so if it goes tits up I only lose 18 pound.

Is that not a bit expensive for IPTV?

I'm paying 60 for 6 months, think it may be 15 per month singular, but since I had no issues with my first test sub I went with the 6 months...

Sports, TV series I never watch, on demand movies, loads of stuff on it...

Dirty Dingus McGee

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

my local tesco aren't making as much as they used to. I didn't feel like buying food anymore so me and a load of others just steal it instead.

Tesco have competition.They sell the exact same products as Dunne's Aldi,Lidl,Centa,Supervalu etc and thus the main supermarkets in Ireland all compete with each other to provide the best value to the customers so the customer chooses the company that provides the best value.

There is no proper competition in televised soccer because they do not offer the exact same product and thus you don't have an fair choice between the 2 providers and it forces people to buy 2 subscriptions rather than 1.

Competition brings prices down for the consumer but there isn't competition in this case.

As a poster earlier said if they want true competition then the same matches should be available on both channels and we can choose whether we want to buy Sky or BT.

niallo27

Fieldog wrote: »

Is that not a bit expensive for IPTV?

I'm paying 60 for 6 months, think it may be 15 per month singular, but since I had no issues with my first test sub I went with the 6 months...

Sports, TV series I never watch, on demand movies, loads of stuff on it...

Maybe it's perfect quality though and the movies and series get updated regularly so don't mind paying it. It also has a very friendly interface so I'm used to it now.

razorblunt

I don't pay for Sky anymore and BT Sports got thrown in with my Virgin package for some reason (I don't think they know I have it).
But I'd love an option of just having a channel for games only, the feed comes on when it's leading up to kick off and goes off again afterwards. That way I don't have to watch appalling punditry and filler shows like Soccer AM, FF Show and Premier League Years on repeat.

Harry Palmr

Just on the rights business - the English FA are about to sell the 2018-2024 rights to the FA Cup for about a billion U$D to two companies who will split the global markets between them (Europe and RoW) and that's just six rounds of games a year! (maybe the rights also include the first two but obviously they would be little monetary value in terms of the deal)

Dirty Dingus McGee

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Just on the rights business - the English FA are about to sell the 2018-2024 rights to the FA Cup for about a billion U$D to two companies who will split the global markets between them (Europe and RoW) and that's just six rounds of games a year! (maybe the rights also include the first two but obviously they would be little monetary value in terms of the deal)

You'd really wonder how the FA cup has such interest particularly outside of england.

It's complete ****e until the semi finals or thereabouts and none of top teams care about it anymore.

I'd love to see where they got the idea to pay 1 billion dollars for it.

Harry Palmr

I was rather taken aback myself. I suppose the rights buyers have done their homework and already have agreements in place in the major markets. I suppose if you add up all the countries that are interested and the value of each it's a bit like global cinema box office - in the end all the Korea's, Norway's and Bulgaria's add up.

thebaz

SantryRed wrote: »

If you have read the thread, you would have seen it was discussed that La Liga now has equal TV money sharing.

Sorry Daddy - I won't do it again

rwbug

You only have to look at last year when Man City effectively withdrew from the FA cup by playing their youth team away to Chelsea to see how teams regard/prioritise it. If the FA can get 1 billion for six years coverage it then fair play to them.

Billy86

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

my local tesco aren't making as much as they used to. I didn't feel like buying food anymore so me and a load of others just steal it instead.

If tesco were charging €10 for a litre of milk with a 25% chance of the type I prefer being in stock on any given day, I'd go to lidl or aldi instead. And so would everyone else, meaning tesco would be out of business in very little time at all.

CSF

I kind of agree. I don't think I'd watch half as much Premier League as I do if it weren't for FPL.

BoJack Horseman

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

You'd really wonder how the FA cup has such interest particularly outside of england.

It's complete ****e until the semi finals or thereabouts and none of top teams care about it anymore

Prefer the league cup myself.
It is the same prize at the end of the day: Wembley/nice trophy/Europa league.
But the league cup is mid-week, doesn't wast a round of PL games & doesn't bother with replays instead deciding on penalty shootouts.

Much better.

Fair play to the FA for getting $1bn for a rights sale all the same.

LiamoSail

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

my local tesco aren't making as much as they used to. I didn't feel like buying food anymore so me and a load of others just steal it instead.

If you're arguing the case for Sky, it'd probably be in your best interests not to involve the ethical angle