Will ITV kill the Football League?

DMC

It appears to be getting very messy at the moment, ITV is considering closing ITV Digital rather than pay the Football League and honour the contract that they signed.

There is talk of 24 clubs seeking bankruptcy, if ITV get to renegiociate the contract, and knock anything between £20m-£50m stg off annually, for the life of the contract.

Will ITV kill lower league football as we know it?
Love to hear some thoughts, espically those who support teams who could be under threat if ITV get their way.

Xterminator

I see your point.

However the lower diviosion clubs have been in trouble for some time. This cannot be attributed to ITV.
They all got together and accepted the highes bid they received to TV rights. Not the most soundly based one, not the most reliable one, and not the one that would give them the most exposure.

If the lower leagues want to stay afloat, they must balance income with outgoings.

Thus if ITV digital, a fledgeling channel, fails to meet its overoptimistic targets, and suffers, the football league will suffer, and must accept the risk that they took, signing with ITV digital sports, rather than say a BBC offer.

The fact is that the leagues have specualted their future on gaining a large proportion of its revenue from an unestablished player, rather than a less lucrative but surer alternative.
They also managed to expose their product to the fewest number of people possible, (a bad business decision in my view) which is hardly going to improve the poor gate receipts that the troubled clubs often experience.

X

DMC

I agree with all you have said X.

They couldn't control their own spending and also they are too heavily reliant on TV money.

But I do fear for the league in general. These chairmen are known for their arrogance, and they will not accept for less.

In my view, the bad business model is correct. ITV Sport Channel is only available on NTL cable and ITV Digital, and crucially, not on Sky Digital. Some games got less that 1,000 viewers. Most folk have already subscribed to Sky Sports, would they be willing to shell out more bucks for Football League games? I doubt it.

I see recently that the masters series tennis has gone to Sky, becuase the ATP felt that there were not getting the exposure with On Digital, as it was then. Sky are under problems with their own Premiership contract. Will they pick-up the ball if ITV burst it?

DMC

And true to form......

From BBC News:

"The Football League has rejected a plea from bosses at struggling ITV Digital to waive payments due in return for screening matches.
League chiefs said, after a meeting on Thursday, that agreeing to a fee reduction could lead to widespread club collapses."

Ball is in ITV's court, they have said that ITV Sport Channel will close if this happened....

There are more interesting stories at http://media.guardian.co.uk/ including Vialli begging for Sky...

mike65

This saga is such as mess and it'll only get worse slowly as the lawyers get invovled, ITV were foolish to pay what they did, the clubs are often poorly run, by local business tycoons who should stick to textiles or car-hire. The whole culture of player power has
run out of control (no you cant have a 100% pay rise, son!).

The whole football league needs restructuring, Alex Flynn came up with some proposals that look interesting.

A wages cap across all football leagues starts to look attractive again.


In the current crisis Carlton and Granada shou;d cough up the difference, while most would'nt miss Darlington or Bury it such clubs that feed the big boys much of thier talent even these days.

Mike.

DMC

I hear a lot of reports talking of wage capping, but I'm sure it is prohibited under European Law.

The Gravy Train has stopped, time to get off.....

-oRnein9-

I used to love watching soccer on BBC but ITV is not so bad I admit it is not as good as M>O>T>D was, but motd was class.