Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

Murphy would give you a migraine listening to him. That party he's in are a horrible shower.

As for scumbags abusing him. They are even worse. That's some going.

There's more than one issue people vote on. It might be enough to push a voter to another party, say from Fine Gael to Fine Fáil

Technically yeah but not in reality. EPL typically sell tranches of fixtures in batches. The EPL will carefully choose a seasons fixtures based on how they are sold. One lot is super Sunday and the other will be Saturday 12:30 and 17:30 matches or whatever. These times can be tweaked but bidders are paying for the fixtures not the times they are played at. More or less. They will typically try to spread the most desirable fixtures in different lots to maximise money from bidding wars but the EPL are tightly regulated and have to comply with competition law. This has been the method for decades.

When it comes to the PL people will look to Sky or TNT and say why don’t you give us this or that but their hands are tied to a large degree.

The EPL have already gotten their money so they are under relatively little pressure to change or come up with some kind creative thinking or out of the box ideas.

As long as Sky and TNT keep paying mental money for the rights then things won’t change and packages for consumers will stay at current or higher cost. The question is will skys reported losses from illegal streaming reflect in how much they will cough up to the PL for the rights. When that happens then the PL may have to look at how their distribute those rights. But completely changing how rights are sold would not be trivial and be subject to a lot of scrutiny and red tape.

Its a ROI half zip. All of their gear for sale in Ireland is emblazoned with "Sky".

The badge is the give away!

The question is will skys reported losses from illegal streaming reflect in how much they will cough up to the PL for the rights. When that happens then the PL may have to look at how their distribute those rights. But completely changing how rights are sold would not be trivial and be subject to a lot of scrutiny and red tape.

That's why the most recent rights deal which started this season and was agreed in late 2023 is so interesting.

The EPL increased the number of games that could be broadcast, cut the number of packages available and extended the length of the deal.

They got more money for the deal overall, but less per game.

There was no longer a small midweek games package that Amazon had, which precluded anyone from going in and testing the water as it were.

I believe that this was to appease the broadcasters who could have come in and said we are not paying x for y because we are losing z to illegal streaming.

It worked out better for the consumer, more games less fragmentation.

It will be interesting to see if the broacasters next time round (about the end of 2027) go to the EPL with a low offer and say that it's because of illegal streaming.

The broadcasters no more what to over pay the EPL than you and I want to over pay the broadcasters.

If that happens a few things could happen.

Other bidders come in, but not in a bidding war, and it becomes more fragmented.

The EPL go it alone.

The EPL accept Sky and TNT again for the same or a lower price.

We might see the end of the 3pm blackout, but what you're not gonna get is a per club deal or anything like that

That would take an overhaul of the EPL charter and if it were to happen I'd have thought we would have heard rumours about it by now.

I'm keen to see what will happen.

It's the soccer bodies (EPL, FA, Football League, UEFA etc) that have to agree to it being removed or changed I believe.

It's not in any law.

My guess is that the vast, vast majority of people who buy firesticks use them to watch prime or Netflix and don't worry about the os or anything like that.

Why pay €40 per month to an american company? You can get Now Sports and Sports extra packs for €27 a month at the moment. Sure you don't get every single game of soccer, but you get an awful lot. Seems mad to pay much more, but maybe I'm missing something?