The new Premier League deal

[eatonparkboy]

I would like to hear what people think about the new deal the Prem has wrung out of SKY and BT.

I am not going to comment on the merits of SKY and BT's existence and influence on football but rather the Premier Leagues influence on football.

I know some posters think it is imperative to be in the Prem to have any chance of progressing and even surviving in league football. I disagree because wherever you watch and whatever you watch, ultimately it is the game and the enjoyment you get.

When I watch my grandsons playing for local teams, I get enjoyment because they matter to me win, lose or draw. And if one scores then so much the better.

And the same applies to NCFC. I don't look forward to a match LESS because it is Charlton away than ManU away. So who they are playing is only relevant depending on whether we are performing well or badly. It would take a convincing argument to convince me that I should enjoy watching RVW and Fer playing for City in the Prem more than Holt and Martin at Orient.

Having said that, I am not so naive to forget that success on the pitch will take you into the Prem. But I am also not naive enough to realise that our last sojourn caused a great deal of heartache because of the failures of the RVW's and Fer's who had been recruited because it was natural to believe we were buying class, and class that would establish us as a Prem regular.

But with the 70% increase in money, that is just going to nullify much of the vaunted but in fact impotent FFP rules, and mean more and more players will be coming to these shores purely for the wages and not because its the "best league in the world". And that will mean even less chance for the younger home grown players and ultimatey the choice for the England manager.

And success will be measured so acutely that managers will be less inclined to take any chances and teams who expect to be 11th downwards will be in fear from the very first game of the season.

I fear the worst.

 

[Canaryboy]

One day the bubble will burst, and some hearts will be broken.

More money needs to trickle down to the lower leagues too. Lincoln City fans are currently selling things on ebay and buying worthless shares to save their club after a bank cancelled their borrowing facility, they need to find £360k.

That's the club of a city with a population of 95000, and a team getting gates averaging 2500 in the Conference national.

Wayne Rooney earns that much money in a week.

The main problem that I have to the amount of money flowing around in the Premier League is that teams outside of the Premier League don't see enough of it.

 

[eatonparkboy]

One day the bubble will burst, and some hearts will be broken.

More money needs to trickle down to the lower leagues too. Lincoln City fans are currently selling things on ebay and buying worthless shares to save their club after a bank cancelled their borrowing facility, they need to find £360k.

That's the club of a city with a population of 95000, and a team getting gates averaging 2500 in the Conference national.

Wayne Rooney earns that much money in a week.

The main problem that I have to the amount of money flowing around in the Premier League is that teams outside of the Premier League don't see enough of it.

But Mr Scudamore says that the Premier League is not a charity. Which of course it isn't but many of its shareholders and employees for the want of a better word have tax deals that are appear to be of charitable status so he should not have been so ingenuous but rather made some attempt at explaining why they needed an extra 70% over three years.

 

[It's Character Forming]

I liked the comment from Alan Sugar that it's like prune juice - the money will just pass straight through.

The Prem clubs are all competing for players so it just inflates the amounts paid to the players.  It does allow Prem clubs to suck in more of the best players from around the world.  but as we saw, if you're lower down the Prem, buying in players like RVW, Fer and Elmander who are second rate players from abroad, you can end up worse off as they don't have the motivation.  I think we'd have a better chance of surviving the Prem with our existing team than with last year's team, despite it being considerably cheaper.

It does make a difference when you're relegated but only if you spend it wisely.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I want our top league to be the top league in the world, the way Serie A was football mecca when I was growing up. This needs money, so the more money the better, so the best players come here.

Where I have a metaphysical dichotomy is the fact that the obscene amount of money is also behind all that that I deplore about football. In some elements it has improved the beautfiul game, in others it has simply franchised it. Footballers become more like spoiled brats and ever distant from the fans, the game becomes ever more cynical, and to the clubs the fans become more like produce, there to be milked for a high yield.

I do think its obscene, but if it keeps the Premiership the place to be then maybe it is necessary.

That said, since Norwich got relegated I've paid little attention to the Premiership. The vacuuousness of football has increasingly turned me off of it of late.

The deal of course only applies to the Premiership, meaning all those outside it have yet a bigger gap to bridge on promotion, and fall harder when they are relegated.

I think its too much and I fear the repurcussions. In an age where many watch streams anyway outside of Sky's proper channels it makes you wonder how many are acutally watching it too

 

[eatonparkboy]

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I want our top league to be the top league in the world, the way Serie A was football mecca when I was growing up. This needs money, so the more money the better, so the best players come here.

Where I have a metaphysical dichotomy is the fact that the obscene amount of money is also behind all that that I deplore about football. In some elements it has improved the beautfiul game, in others it has simply franchised it. Footballers become more like spoiled brats and ever distant from the fans, the game becomes ever more cynical, and to the clubs the fans become more like produce, there to be milked for a high yield.

I do think its obscene, but if it keeps the Premiership the place to be then maybe it is necessary.

That said, since Norwich got relegated I've paid little attention to the Premiership. The vacuuousness of football has increasingly turned me off of it of late.

The deal of course only applies to the Premiership, meaning all those outside it have yet a bigger gap to bridge on promotion, and fall harder when they are relegated.

I think its too much and I fear the repurcussions. In an age where many watch streams anyway outside of Sky's proper channels it makes you wonder how many are acutally watching it too

The Premier League is parallel to life in Britain and perhaps most western countries. The wealth in football, discounting the owners, will be shared amongst the few. And the Premier League will exist like London, where the real opportunities are increasing to the detriment of those in the provinces or north of the Thames Valley.

And support will drift to the top clubs because they will get stronger and football followers in places like Cornwall where I live, will, without a club to identify with, choose and financially support through shirt sales etc, the big name clubs.

The paradox is sport in the USA, the home of greed and power, where the weakest are given the first opportunity at the best talent so that, in theory, no team can excel just because of wealth.

 

[BroadstairsR]

Most of the games on Match of the Day this season have been superb. A joy to watch. I don't know about the "best league in the World" tag, but it sure 'aint far off.

I visit TWTD a lot and the constant venom towards the "crook" Mudoch (such irony from the supporters of a club financed by Marcus Evans) befits an impoverished club with massive debts and holding the unenviable title of the "Championship's longest serving continuous member."

Let's hope we are not drifting in that direction due to our decreased status.

Of course we need the financial benefits that PL membership offers (we may even finance a new stand one day if we return there) but surely our main aspiration as supporters is for our team to be competing with the best, have the high profile associated with being in the top league and have more coverage in general to enjoy.

One recent bitch on TWTD is that Sky will now likely put up the price of the sports coverage, their finances coming solely from subscriptions and advertising. In their parochial little corner of Suffolk they seem blissfully unaware that a large proportion of their (Sky's)income comes from selling on their coverage (to ESPN for eg.) to all parts of the globe. From Shanghai to Singapore, for example, you can hardly pass a bar without an advertisement on it's  frontageit listing the fothcoming "English Premier League games"  to be screened in house.

Firstly, it is something to be proud of, but mostly it is testament to the quality of the fayre that it appeals to so many millions so many miles away.

Yer pays yer money, yer takes yer choice.

I am an avent supporter of Sky as you might have guessed. The way they have revolutionised sports coverage(I love the cricket, golf, rugby and even the speedway btw) has been sensational.

Of course, it is not a good thing that it is all powerful, but they do have challengers (BT) who effectively raise the stakes and, of course, more money should be challenged into the lower leagues and the grass roots, but there has to be an elemnet of Darwinianism applied here too (survival of the fittest.) and is it not true to say that many lower league clubs hardly deserve,  because of abysmal support, lousy facilities, poor quality football,) their professional status in this day and age when there are so many other better activities and and entertainments to divert the paying customer.

To lambast Sky and bemoan the stae of professional football at this present time is, in my view, backward thinking. It's called progress, it's march is inevitable. But at the same time this march is dictated by market forces.

As I see it,  the biggest threat to Sky's dominance on the horizon is the day the Footballing authorities allow each club to stream all their games, on a pay by view arrangement, to their fans. Remember, that for the 26, 000 at Carrow Road each home game there are multose thousands of City fans dotted around this country and the World who, like me, would galdly pay to watch official, uninterrupted streams. Just think how much it would swell the Club's coffers. TV money would pale into insignificance.

Now I wait for the inevtable flack I will get from some quarters. 

 

[Lone Star Canary]

The paradox is sport in the USA, the home of greed and power, where the weakest are given the first opportunity at the best talent so that, in theory, no team can excel just because of wealth.

I guess you're referring to the draft, where players from lower levels are allocated based on the reverse of their position in the table.  The draft is only as good as the effort put in to scout it.  In most sports the draft isn't very deep - only 2 rounds in the NBA and 7 in the NFL and NHL.  In all three leagues a fair bit of the talent comes from outside the draft via free agency - the most being in the NFL, where roster sizes (40, plus practice squad) and career length (just a few years) means most players get to the league undrafted.  Baseball has a 40 round draft plus some supplemental drafts, but drafting a player there usually means waiting 3-5 years for the player to develop in the minors before being brought up to the majors.

In all four sports, just because the weakest can benefit from the draft doesn't mean that they do.  Teams trade draft picks, make stupid mistakes, or get unlucky and draft someone high whose career gets cut short by injury.  We also have salary caps over here, which helps drive parity further.  Imagine where players would go in the EPL if payrolls were capped at say 75% of the current highest level?  It would drive down some salaries in the top half of talent and their distribution would be more widespread. 

At the same time, we don't have promotion/relegation in any sport.  Oh how I'd love to see it here.  Unlikely since club ownership is based on the value of the club, and if a club is insecure in its position, that would drive the values down - and owners wouldn't have it.  Plus, three of the four traditional league already have their own minor league systems.  Baseball has five levels, hockey two (really only one as very little talent ever develops out of that bottom tier, typically goalies and enforcers), and basketball one.  All four sports benefit from a college feeder/developmental system, though baseball and hockey often gets players right out of high school.

Not saying any of this is right or better, just what it is.  At least you guys have efforts to make attending games affordable.  I always get a chuckle when y'all complain about ticket prices when I drop $100 to go to a college football game or $50 to see an NHL game in Dallas (plus either $15 parking or $10 to take the train over from Fort Worth).  Decent Texas Rangers tickets are $50-$60, which is why I usually just wait until the Royals are in town There's always cheaper options (nosebleeds, outfield bleachers), but typically not for season ticket holders.  I can sit behind the Royals' dugout in Kansas City for $48 - not bad for a team that just missed winning the World Series by 90 feet, but alas I don't live there.

 

[Lone Star Canary]

As I see it,  the biggest threat to Sky's dominance on the horizon is the day the Footballing authorities allow each club to stream all their games, on a pay by view arrangement, to their fans. Remember, that for the 26, 000 at Carrow Road each home game there are multose thousands of City fans dotted around this country and the World who, like me, would galdly pay to watch official, uninterrupted streams. Just think how much it would swell the Club's coffers. TV money would pale into insignificance.

Now I wait for the inevtable flack I will get from some quarters. 

I don't think so.  Norwich (and likely every other club) would make far more getting 1/20 of the annual EPL TV pie than they would if they went and did their own streaming.  The advantage of a league-wide package is that it is worth more together than as a sum of its parts.  This is especially true in the UK where team leave isn't as much a function of local market size as it is in North America.

What the EPL and Football League need to do is look at how the leagues here sell regional/national/international level broadcasting rights and can still sell streaming subscriptions for any device I own for $130.  It's the only way I can watch the Royals. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/

 

[BroadstairsR]

I don't think so.  Norwich (and likely every other club) would make far more getting 1/20 of the annual EPL TV pie than they would if they went and did their own streaming.  The advantage of a league-wide package is that it is worth more together than as a sum of its parts.  This is especially true in the UK where team leave isn't as much a function of local market size as it is in North America.

What the EPL and Football League need to do is look at how the leagues here sell regional/national/international level broadcasting rights and can still sell streaming subscriptions for any device I own for $130.  It's the only way I can watch the Royals. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/

Possibly, but that's assuming that we are in the EPL. We are not.

The TV deal for the Pl, of nearly £100m for even the bottom club takes some beating, but surely TV money would still exist or do people just pay their Sky subscription to cover the times their own club is televised? MotD remains highly popular after all.

Also, we are not PL atm.

I think I heard it estimated once that NCFC's fan-base stands at about 130, 000, although how this is estimated I wouldn't know.

Half these paying a tenner a time for a decent stream on a fortnightly basis ( and  many of the away club fans would also buy in, and vice versa) would dwarf the TV money we get in the Chumps surely?

 

[Canaryboy]

The Premier League is parallel to life in Britain and perhaps most western countries. The wealth in football, discounting the owners, will be shared amongst the few. And the Premier League will exist like London, where the real opportunities are increasing to the detriment of those in the provinces or north of the Thames Valley.

And support will drift to the top clubs because they will get stronger and football followers in places like Cornwall where I live, will, without a club to identify with, choose and financially support through shirt sales etc, the big name clubs.

The paradox is sport in the USA, the home of greed and power, where the weakest are given the first opportunity at the best talent so that, in theory, no team can excel just because of wealth.

But the largest town in Cornwall has a population of just 30000 (and that's the built up area), can anybody think of a town with a smaller population (in the UK) which has a smaller population?

The only one that I can think of is Fleetwood, but there is barely any countryside between Fleetwood and a very large town (Blackpool).

The county is certainly big enough to support a football club, but Truro almost made it to the football league not so long ago (before it was discovered that their owners were fraudsters and none of their money actually existed), could you really imagine people from Falmouth and Penzance supporting Truro?

 

[eatonparkboy]

But the largest town in Cornwall has a population of just 30000 (and that's the built up area), can anybody think of a town with a smaller population (in the UK) which has a smaller population?

The only one that I can think of is Fleetwood, but there is barely any countryside between Fleetwood and a very large town (Blackpool).

The county is certainly big enough to support a football club, but Truro almost made it to the football league not so long ago (before it was discovered that their owners were fraudsters and none of their money actually existed), could you really imagine people from Falmouth and Penzance supporting Truro?

Precisely my point. Devon cannot support three league clubs any more and Torquay have not got out of the Conference. Plymouth may get out of L2 via the playoffs but will never get the large crowds and success they had before and Exeter is run on a shoe string and owned by its supporters. The odds are stacked.

Cornwall cannot support a league club. The image of rugby as a "man's game" and football for the "girls"  still prevails. So the support will never be there. And the lack of a ground that meets Conference standard alone means they can't progress through the leagues.

I used to watch Truro as often as I could but as soon as I was able to resume watching City via away games or the advent of internet streaming, I stopped going. And many others I know stopped going because there was no future. The club is doing well in Southern League Premier but that's down to the goodwill of many of their players who were playing for £500 a game not so long ago and now play for expenses. And it is run amateurishly. My sons mate was reserve team manager but left because the chairman was telling him who to pick.

And the vacuum in football in areas like Cornwall means when two of my grandsons went football training they were forced to run the gauntlet of derision because they wore Norwich shirts. And the derision came from lads who haven't been out of the county let alone to f football match but are fond of quoting "we are Chelsea, We are Manu, we are ManC". And even "we are Barcelona, We are Madrid". Never, "we are WBA, we are Stoke". Its FIFA15 talk.

Teams like Burnley and Blackburn have done brilliantly with small populations but I fear they will succumb and teams like Fleetwood will have their day in the sun but will probably go back to where they came from.

 

[Monty13]

My issue is more that the Championship potential TV revenue is neutered and kept down by the PL. The Championship is the fourth biggest supported football league in the world. Not only that it is the 7th most attended of ANY outdoor sport in the entire world. 

The Championship on it's own should be able to demand a higher level of coverage and be able to market itself. Of course it will never, ever compete in monetary terms with the level of the PL, but at the moment the PL has no incentive for the Championship to have any greater domestic or international coverage. On that stage it is competition for the PL.

The Championship being lumped in with the rest of the Football League for coverage and highlights is a morally great idea but it is at the Championship's detriment. 

Every Championship club's desire to make it to the top table is ignoring the potential revenue generation of the Championship. If the Championship was to introduce a system of different rights and packages for broadcasting all it's games both domestically and abroad, with two fingers to the FA and PL, and sold it's highlights package separately to the FL, IMO it would be able to work out ways to generate more income than it get's currently.

The Problem is it has the twin problem of the PL having no interest in the Championship having greater coverage and the rest of the FL being an unpalatable millstone around it's neck when selling coverage.

The ITV digital deal was the right kind of idea, wrong time and wrong method. There's probably a decent audience for a game like Norwich v Wolves both domestically and abroad (English football is very marketable, especially at much reduced prices to PL), but there just isn't and never will be the appetite for Torquay v Exeter etc. (sorry for fans of those teams) unless it's a play-off final. That was the mistake, the Football League is not marketable as 72 Clubs, it is the reason the PL broke away in the first place! The Championship needs to be allowed to stand on it's own two feet, not get hand outs from the PL and have to prop up the rest of the FL.

If that was allowed to happen I'd bet anything we would see a much stronger second tier both financially and competitively.

 

[eatonparkboy]

The TV money is only relevant because of the neutral. I assume SKY and Co have done some kind of research and analysis to determine who actually watches the matches they televise. Do people tune in because its Chelsea versus Arsenal and they expect to see a tremendous game? Or is it because they are told it will be a good game by pre match publicity?

I know no-one can predict just how good a game will be but I doubt there would have been a better game than Bolton v Watford at the weekend. Maybe the technical skills on show weren't up to Prem standard but that didn't detract from it having seven goals and other goal mouth action. And isn't that, in reality, what people want? The value added factor of lower league matches is, I believe, more valuable than many Prem matches which are just possession, possession, possession.

If we leave aside the skills the England team might need to compete at finals, then surely the essence of good football at professional levels is if the fans go home thinking they have been entertained and got value for their ticket price?

You would imagine the Championship has got its share of technically good players, as a quarter of the teams have either been demoted from the Prem or promoted successfully from L1. And the facilities for a large bulk of the division are on a par with most Prem clubs.

So it does puzzle me why a company like Virgin doesn't stop belly aching about not being part of the Prem broadcasting cartel and do a deal with the FL. It might take a couple of years to get the neutral to watch in numbers, but without bias, there is a tasty little fixture, it appears, in the Championship when we play Watford. We should see a good game with chances galore if not goals. And I do believe that a neutral might be far more entertained than Leicester v Everton or ManC v Newcastle.

But the more and more polarisation of football into six or eight Prem clubs might eventually mean the neutral will make their choice from that little clique. A vast nation like the USA has only 32 NFL teams and some are in the same city as well as state. But their college football is thriving and many states that do not have an NFL team have well supported college teams. I don't know how they are televised and maybe Lone star Canary can help me out here but I do believe each conference negotiates its TV rights with several broadcasters. But in essence, it is the same game, almost the same rules on the same size pitch. And the TV audiences are certainly in the miilions against a backdrop of competition from many other sports.

 

[GazzaTCC]

http://wp.me/p5KJYh-3

I have added my thoughts on the Premier League TV deal here. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

OTBC

 

[eatonparkboy]

http://wp.me/p5KJYh-3

I have added my thoughts on the Premier League TV deal here. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

OTBC

I do believe that the next significant call from the PL will be for a further reduction from 20 to 18 teams. The extra income from the TV deal will no doubt cover the loss of two home games. With normally seven teams involved in Europe up to December, I envisage the four games missing to encourage them to ask for a break over the Christmas period.

 

[GazzaTCC]

It's an interesting call Eatonparkboy, although there doesn't seem much discussion or appetite for a reduction in the total number of teams.

They'd have to get 14 out of 20 to vote in favour and, as there's probably only about 7 teams guaranteed survival, I would say (hope) it's unlikely.

 

[eatonparkboy]

It's an interesting call Eatonparkboy, although there doesn't seem much discussion or appetite for a reduction in the total number of teams.

They'd have to get 14 out of 20 to vote in favour and, as there's probably only about 7 teams guaranteed survival, I would say (hope) it's unlikely.

The last reduction was so amusing. Man City were perennial sufferers in those days and they said they would vote against the reduction when it was first mooted. It may have been one of the last things Swales was involved in.

Other sports are reducing their numbers in their top leagues and some want to use criteria that means the big clubs would be safe no matter what. And I'm sure our PL giants could lobby enough if there was a promise of say three years of no relegation.

And I do envisage a European league expansion as a consequence. I envisage the top notch teams putting out lower strength teams in Category B and C games so that they can save the stars for matches in tournaments in Qatar and such places over the Christmas breaks.

 

[ZLF]

What we may see is a resurrection of the premier league 2 proposals.

 

[GazzaTCC]

What we may see is a resurrection of the premier league 2 proposals.

I suspect that there would have to be a reduction in the number of second flight teams to 20 and, more importantly in my opinion, if there isn't a substantial reduction in TV monies for the top flight clubs. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas