What are Jeff Stelling and the boys going to talk about?

Mr Alan · 06-09-2007 05:12PM

great post mr Llyod

leninbenjamin · 06-09-2007 05:32PM

Agree'd, good post Lloyd,

but...

What we're seeing is a huge surge in spending from all the clubs due to the massive TV deals that are now over shadowing the attendances. However, a lot of smaller to medium clubs are banking on constant/increased attendances (eg. Everton/Portsmouth building new stadiums) in the medium/long term future. It's the smaller clubs that would be the first to sustain any losses in attendance should the overall figure go down, as they havn't the large international fan bases like Utd or Pool (with the higher levels of foreign fan tourism) to carry them over should the local fans become fed up. And as said there is already an indication fan attendances overall are falling.
one day it could hit these lesser established clubs that they've over budgeted, and can hardly afford the day to day spending, and i think a lot of clubs could potentially be hit by this in the medium term futures. attendance is still a sizable % of revenue, and might mean all the difference between whether your profitable or not.

Much more of a worry for me is the huge investment by foreign billionaires. we hear from your Thaksins, Lerners, Quinnys and so on how they want their clubs to compete for Europe, become big etc. but that's an awful lot of clubs spending huge money on a very small reward pool. one of these days i think some of these will just wake up and realise it's not worth it/attainable, and that the club will hardly ever become profitable in this manner and suddenly the investment will fall etc. and we'll see a lot fall back into semi-obscurity, survival mode. As big as the TV deals are, it seems any club who wants to get into the top half of the table these days have to have a billionaire backer. that's just unsustainable and non sensical and wont last for very long imo. it just doesn't seem a stable business plan...

i can see a few more Leeds in the medium term future...

Edit: rejigged 1st paragraph, i should learn to use preview more often.

Mr Alan · 06-09-2007 05:45PM

can we please have this thread locked? the posts are far too well thought and eloquently put!

The Rooster · 06-09-2007 08:41PM

gimmick wrote:

The big deal is for the fans who actually go to games on a Saturday afternoon, the traditional fan who saw his team play every home game at least before the advent of saturation TV coverage.

The big deal is that the KO times are all over the place to suit Sky and Setanta subscribers, and not to suit the fans in the ground.

The big deal is that it is a damn sight easier for a guy to get to a ground, have a few beers before and after for a 3pm ko, than it is to get to wherever for 12.30 on a Sunday.

It doesnt matter what the ordinary attending fan thinks anyway, the money is in TV, the clubs know that as do the companies, so screw the fans.

And may I say that the people who think its great, that is a typical armchair/barstool supporter attitude.

Agreed. I couldnt give a crap what the ordinary English supporter thinks. So long as there are plenty of Liverpool games on TV and Anfield is almost always full, I'm happy.

Rikand · 06-09-2007 10:44PM

I have no problem with Blackburn not playing on Saturday, for as long as we remain in the UEFA cup

The Rooster · 07-09-2007 09:11AM

Aquos76 wrote:

Is the Spurs game the only one not shown? When is the postponed game from the start of the season, due to be played?

Correct re the Liverpool v Spurs game.

No date set yet for the West Ham game that was postponed.

Bluetonic · 07-09-2007 10:47AM

The Guardians take on it.

Premier League greed is killing the people's game

The decline of the traditional 3pm Saturday kick-off is symptomatic of how TV dictates fixtures, writes Steven Powell.
The Guardian
September 7, 2007 12:05 AM

We all know why in four weeks' time only one Premier League game will kick off on Saturday at 3.00pm. Greed. The Premier League, famously dubbed by one veteran football writer the "Greed Is Good League", is interested in only one thing when it comes to broadcasting rights. Money. The interests of match-going fans come a long way behind.

The Premier League will protest that some games on the weekend of October 6-7 have been moved because of involvement of English teams in the Uefa Cup. True, but the reason those clubs' European matches have been moved from Wednesday night to Thursday night, necessitating their league games being put back, is, you guessed it, television. Uefa has pushed Uefa Cup games to Thursday nights to clear the way for its flagship Champions League.

Increasingly, fixture lists published at the start of each season are looking like works of fiction. This does not only affect visiting fans - as an example, over 6,000 Newcastle season-ticket holders live 150 miles or more south of the city.

Fans, correctly, do not blame the broadcasters for this. They blame the Premier League for selling its soul. The league protests that its clubs have used the television billions to turn it into the self-styled "best league in the world". Oh really? Let's look at Uefa Champions League winners since the Premier League was founded in 1992-93. Italy has five if you include the 1992-93 title awarded to Milan after Marseille were found guilty of bribery and stripped of the title. Then come Spain with four, Germany and England with two each, with one for Portugal and Holland.

Although Germany has won the same number of Champions League titles as England it has maintained sane ticket prices. The vast majority of games kick off at the traditional time of 3.30pm on Saturdays, with the choice to sit or stand. Grounds such as the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund, the AOL Arena in Hamburg and the Allianz Arena in Munich are world-class facilities hosting sell-out crowds for each match in style and comfort and with great value for money. Standing tickets can be had for less than £8. Seats go for £13-£40.

The Premier League's own research shows that seven out of 10 fans arrive at matches in private cars. When all of us have an obligation to reduce carbon emissions, switching more and more games to Sundays when public transport is at its worst will only encourage football's carbon footprint to grow. We need measures to promote public transport use. In Germany 75p for each match ticket is given to the local transport authority. In return fans get free public transport to and from the ground on production of their match ticket - the sort of simple, common-sense idea that we seem incapable of in this country.

Fans who oppose the dismemberment of traditional Saturday-afternoon football are not Luddites. Clubs' opposition to live television over many decades was stupid, it held the game back, but what we oppose is overkill. Football needs to remember that one of the reasons television pays such extraordinary sums for football is the packed and passionate grounds. The football-going fan-base is ageing and increasingly affluent, hardly an advert for the people's game.

The Premier League needs to address these issues long before the next broadcasting negotiations start some time in 2009. It will fail to act at its peril. Steven Powell is director of policy & campaigns for the Football Supporters' Federation

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/09/07/premier_league_greed_ignores_t.html

ciaran76 · 07-09-2007 02:09PM

I remember about 10 years ago reading Terry Venables book and he said this would happen and could see in another few years that some clubs will have to give seats away for free to fans for certain games just to get people in the stadiums.

What are Jeff Stelling and the boys going to talk about?

Comments