Discuss

It’s certainly getting less and less relevant, since fewer and fewer top-flight games are going to be played at 3pm anyway. It’s important to note that the moving of games away from Saturday at 3pm is ultimately less about avoiding the domestic blackout, and more about maximising overseas broadcasting revenue. You can screw magnitudes more advertising revenue out of 10 games per match week held at different times, as opposed to having 5 or 6 played concurrently.

As per the TV deal currently in place, domestic revenue (£1.7bn) is slightly bigger than the combined total of all overseas deals (circa £1.6bn). The trajectory of domestic TV money has been huge since the PL’s inception in 1992, but it’s nothing like that of the collective overseas deals over the past 5-10 years. The ceiling is so much higher in parts of the world like the US, middle and far east, and Scandinavia.

It will take some time to come out in the wash, but it’s nailed on that international TV revenue will surpass domestic for the first time in the Premier League’s 31 year history in relative short order, and it will probably by some margin. If the game at the top level has been running away for some time, this is the moment control is lost forever. The power lies in foreign hands, and it’s only a matter of time until we start seeing regular season games being hosted in all corners of the world, and beyond that, who knows.

Game’s gone.

Shock horror that the first one in that piece who supports removing the blackout 'supports' Liverpool despite coming from Caerphilly, a 4 hour drive from Anfield.

Genuinely not convinced the blackout works anymore though.  Even without a ban, 3pm on Saturday would not be the favoured slot for TV companies.  You would get the Bournemouth v Wolves type fixtures at that time with the 'better' fixtures at times that can draw bigger audiences.

If anyone neutral is opting to watch Bournemouth v Wolves over their own team playing then we might as well just give up on football altogether.

The appetite is already there for ALL the Premier League games to be televised.  If you want to it's easy enough to watch them all via IPTV. I think the next stage is that Premier League games don't get played at 3pm on Saturday but are instead spread out over the remainder of the weekend, which is pretty much what happens in La Liga.

Aslong as it doesn't effect town I don't care. I won't lie I have stsrted to enjoy watching midweek and evening prem games when town aren't playing again

Televised games at 3pm will be a disaster for lower league football clubs and midweek fa cup games is a joke.
Let teams opt out if they want to but don’t punish everyone else, i don’t know why they don’t let top teams field weekend teams and let the younger players have a game.

I’m in favour of removing the blackout on the basis that TV audiences are different to in-person ones.

Yes, people who like to watch the football in an actual stadium probably also watch football on TV, but I’d wager that those people would much rather be in the stands if they could be. Football clubs will always have a dedicated in-person following because it’s a unique and fun way to watch sport. Once you’ve caught the bug for watching live sport it’s pretty difficult to give up, no matter how good the TV coverage is.

Then we have the television audience – people who have less interest in watching in-person but still like to follow along from home. I see no problem with this. There is no “correct” way to be a fan, but if the technology exists to broaden your fan base, why not open things up to more people?

(Also, speaking from the perspective of older fans in particular, there are plenty of people who would love to watch in-person but can’t for various health-related, or perhaps work-related, reasons.)

The main argument against is that attendances will suffer, with FA Cup games often cited as evidence that this will happen. I’d argue that poor FA Cup attendances are more a symptom of the competition losing its integrity over many years – plus smaller clubs hosting “bigger” sides always seem to sell out.

It may well be different for smaller clubs like Accrington (Andy Holt is always banging on about how bad it would be for his club), but for ours, which has a huge exile fan base, it could really help to increase income.

One idea might to be make all Premier league games a Sunday 3pm kick off and if a team has a European Tuesday night game, they can move it forward to a Saturday.

Bad for lower league cubs more marginal fans will sit on the sofa rather then go to live games

On the money paid by Sky this time fascinating article by Martin Samuel on this in The Times today. Synopsis basically Sky are now basically bidding only against themselves (small bid from Old BT sports excluded ) and didn’t need to pay what they did to secure rights even though it’s considerably lower per game. So why did they do it? Answer they need Premier League to be the best in the world to maintain subscriber revenue and if clubs are not funded by them to this extent the League won’t attract the best players ,subscribers leave and the house of cards unravels.

Quoted from kafunanapar140909

I’m in favour of removing the blackout on the basis that TV audiences are different to in-person ones.

Yes, people who like to watch the football in an actual stadium probably also watch football on TV, but I’d wager that those people would much rather be in the stands if they could be. Football clubs will always have a dedicated in-person following because it’s a unique and fun way to watch sport. Once you’ve caught the bug for watching live sport it’s pretty difficult to give up, no matter how good the TV coverage is.

Then we have the television audience – people who have less interest in watching in-person but still like to follow along from home. I see no problem with this. There is no “correct” way to be a fan, but if the technology exists to broaden your fan base, why not open things up to more people?

(Also, speaking from the perspective of older fans in particular, there are plenty of people who would love to watch in-person but can’t for various health-related, or perhaps work-related, reasons.)

The main argument against is that attendances will suffer, with FA Cup games often cited as evidence that this will happen. I’d argue that poor FA Cup attendances are more a symptom of the competition losing its integrity over many years – plus smaller clubs hosting “bigger” sides always seem to sell out.

It may well be different for smaller clubs like Accrington (Andy Holt is always banging on about how bad it would be for his club), but for ours, which has a huge exile fan base, it could really help to increase income.

I don’t want to be part of a world where lower league clubs fan watch there team from the sofa and the grounds are empty.

Sounds a bit cynical & disloyal to the lower league game but if the blackout is removed non league clubs might take the opportunity to kick off earlier get a big screen in the club house and make some hospitality revenue when people stop back to watch.

Appreciate that’s a bit generic but unfortunately the big clubs own the game and it’s never going to change.