Streaming revenues

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

This is interesting. Some of you might have seen it as I have filched it from TWTD, and their poster clearly took it from the Colchester United forum as it is written by their chairman.

The bottom line is that the more of us who stick with IFollow (my coverage was excelllent on Saturday, btw.) the more income our club gets and it can be quite sizeable.

Apparently we have quite a large and widespread fanbase.

 

"Streaming Revenues
The way it works currently is that the home team keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website and they also get the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team. For example: for Saturday’s game against Bolton, we sold 452 iFollow passes, (so we keep all of the revenue from those), and Bolton sold 2252 iFollow passes, (of which we get the revenue from the first 500).

This has put a very new aspect on the revenue that is available to clubs this season. Bolton made more money in gate receipts from our home fixture than we did because they had the revenue from 1,752 iFollow passes whereas we had the revenue from 952 iFollow passes. In normal times, we would have expected about £54,000 in home gate receipts from this fixture but we will receive just shy of £8,000, whereas Bolton would have expected about £600 for the 5% commission we pay them but will have received about £14,000 more than that.

We sold just over 300 streams for the away game against Bradford, so we earnt £0.00 for that away game and I expect that to be the case for every away game this season. So based on twenty three away games, Bolton look set to receive about £345,000 from the streaming of their away games this season whilst we can look forward to approximately £0.00.

Perhaps these facts might help some of you that think we should still be in the Championship understand what we are up against."

Edited September 23, 2020 by BroadstairsR

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

I have edited my original as for some reason the first part of the chairman's post did not paste correctly .... the important bit.

Edited September 23, 2020 by BroadstairsR

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I hope clubs look at this ongoing and when supporters are allowed back in they realise there is extra revenue available-as long as they don't over price things.

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

Shopping, socialising, betting, newspapers, letter writing, buying tax and insurance etc. all increasingly online.

Virus or not, this is happening with sport as well.

Streaming and the likes of IFollow are a great thing for expats.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

Although it may be counter intuitive for me to argue I want the club to charge me for something i'm currently getting for free the above is why I don;t understand why we are getting free streams for away games from the club or indeed possible free home games streams as well if we are getting a full refund on our ST for every home game we can;t attend. Unless I am missing something the club appears to be giving up a potentially significant revenue stream at a time when it arguably needs it.

20,000 season ticket holders @£10 a stream for home games = £200K per game = £5 million. Ok takes no account of households with multiple season tickets but even so over the course of a season thats quite a big sum of money.

In my view we could easily also sell 5,000-10,000 streams for most away games, if not more. I dare say if the club made a major push and issued a plea to the fans many would be very happy to pay £10 most weekends to watch us play.

It will be annoying if we are told we have to sell players due to decreased revenue streams whilst, it appears, not really making the most of the opportunity the streaming service presents. 

[GenerationA47 747]

4 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

 

I was having the exact same thought. Didn’t want to mention it as I’m not personally a STH . I wouldn’t want to take anything away from you loyal punters.
 

Can only think it’s either a calculated gesture of solidarity with STHs (since watching online is a lesser experience than doing so at the ground), or there’s some stipulation from the EFL to do this

[Jim Smith 2,314]

4 minutes ago, GenerationA47 said:

I was having the exact same thought. Didn’t want to mention it as I’m not personally a STH . I wouldn’t want to take anything away from you loyal punters.
 

Can only think it’s either a calculated gesture of solidarity with STHs (since watching online is a lesser experience than doing so at the ground), or there’s some stipulation from the EFL to do this

Well as a season ticket holder I was expecting the £10 cost of the home games streams we get for free to come off my refund for any I take up but I am told by others on here that is not the case and we can expect a full, pro rata refund for any home games we can’t attend (although have not seen that actually confirmed by the club).

clearly if the club has suggested they will provide the service for free to home ST holders then that’s actually a nice gesture but it’s actually biting them a bit on the backside because they are already getting grief from people aggrieved they can’t stream our AWAY match at Bournemouth for free!

[Matt Juler 148]

6 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

clearly if the club has suggested they will provide the service for free to home ST holders then that’s actually a nice gesture but it’s actually biting them a bit on the backside because they are already getting grief from people aggrieved they can’t stream our AWAY match at Bournemouth for free!

I'm aggrieved because they've moved the goal posts.  If I'm told something will be free based on the T&Cs it should then remain free.  

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

This is interesting and relevant:

https://www.marketingweek.com/norwich-city-fc-eyes-global-brand-status/

[Jim Smith 2,314]

2 minutes ago, Matt Juler said:

I'm aggrieved because they've moved the goal posts.  If I'm told something will be free based on the T&Cs it should then remain free.  

I get that Matt. I agree the text said any games other than saturday 3pm so you are right the goalposts have been moved.

I'm referring more at some people who seem to think they should be able to stream our away games for free when in normal cirumstances it would be costing them £25-30 plus travel etc to go and watch them.

More than that though i'm a little concerned that the club is missing out on an opportunity here although perhaps they are just being very generous for which credit where its due!

 

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

72, 000 followers around world in 200 countries.

Does this include locals/UK?

[Jim Smith 2,314]

Just now, BroadstairsR said:

72, 000 followers around world in 200 countries.

Does this include locals/UK?

The clubs main twitter account has over 700,000 followers.

That was from 2012 but I would assume that 72,000 is fans on our ticketing database?

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

3 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

The clubs main twitter account has over 700,000 followers.

That was from 2012 but I would assume that 72,000 is fans on our ticketing database?

Yes I realise it was dated ... and the twitter account tells a lot.

Big potential  income from IFollow?

[Jim Smith 2,314]

5 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I get that Matt. I agree the text said any games other than saturday 3pm so you are right the goalposts have been moved.

I'm referring more at some people who seem to think they should be able to stream our away games for free when in normal cirumstances it would be costing them £25-30 plus travel etc to go and watch them.

More than that though i'm a little concerned that the club is missing out on an opportunity here although perhaps they are just being very generous for which credit where its due!

 

Unless of course we still get paid by the EFL/I'follow for all the ST's that take up the option so its not actually the club that is covering the cost?

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

19 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I hope clubs look at this ongoing and when supporters are allowed back in they realise there is extra revenue available-as long as they don't over price things.

Clubs have been pushing for this for years - it has been stopped due to the 3pm broadcasting ban mostly.

If clubs are allowed to sell streams to fans directly then say goodbye to any remaining glimpse of equality in football. As the article from the Colchester Chairman states, they are already been put at a competitive disadvantage through the money from streaming is worked out. Imagine how much more money a team like Man U or Liverpool could make if they were allowed to sell stream directly to their fans globally? 

If streaming of all games is to be a thing, it needs to be done through collective bargaining. Either all the income is pooled and divided equally amongst teams or the rights are sold to a third party and the income made is again divided equally to teams. While streaming is a necessity while fans can't attend - I hope it does not continue beyond then, unless the way the income is made is spread in a more equitable way. 

[......and Smith must score. 1,332]

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Well as a season ticket holder I was expecting the £10 cost of the home games streams we get for free to come off my refund for any I take up but I am told by others on here that is not the case and we can expect a full, pro rata refund for any home games we can’t attend (although have not seen that actually confirmed by the club).

clearly if the club has suggested they will provide the service for free to home ST holders then that’s actually a nice gesture but it’s actually biting them a bit on the backside because they are already getting grief from people aggrieved they can’t stream our AWAY match at Bournemouth for free!

Jim, It was said at the supporter groups meetings that the full pro-rata cost of any home matches you don't physically attend will be credited to your Carrow Rd account within ten days or so of the match taking place. I assume that’s still the case. Any credit can be withdrawn from there and paid onto your card or nomimated bank account. The money can also be used for further ticket purchases, hospitality or club shop items.

iFollow paid-for TV passes are operated by a completely separate company and have to be paid for on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ......and Smith must score.

[cornish sam 944]

18 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Clubs have been pushing for this for years - it has been stopped due to the 3pm broadcasting ban mostly.

If clubs are allowed to sell streams to fans directly then say goodbye to any remaining glimpse of equality in football. As the article from the Colchester Chairman states, they are already been put at a competitive disadvantage through the money from streaming is worked out. Imagine how much more money a team like Man U or Liverpool could make if they were allowed to sell stream directly to their fans globally? 

If streaming of all games is to be a thing, it needs to be done through collective bargaining. Either all the income is pooled and divided equally amongst teams or the rights are sold to a third party and the income made is again divided equally to teams. While streaming is a necessity while fans can't attend - I hope it does not continue beyond then, unless the way the income is made is spread in a more equitable way. 

A mitigation of the inequalities (at least in the short term) may be to let the home team keep the majority of the streaming income. It would still lead to an imbalance but at least it would only be half as much...

[Jim Smith 2,314]

41 minutes ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

Jim, It was said at the supporter groups meetings that the full pro-rata cost of any home matches you don't physically attend will be credited to your Carrow Rd account within ten days or so of the match taking place. I assume that’s still the case. Any credit can be withdrawn from there and paid onto your card or nomimated bank account. The money can also be used for further ticket purchases, hospitality or club shop items.

iFollow paid-for TV passes are operated by a completely separate company and have to be paid for on a pay-as-you-go basis.

So if 20,000 season ticket holders take up their "free" i-follow pass for a home game do both NCFC and I-follow get nothing from that or are the club subsidising the free access or is it being subsidised by i-player (i.e. we still get paid our share for the audience we are bringing in even if most of them are not paying anything)? Appears to me there could be a risk that we are actually being disadvantaged by the number of season ticket holders we have. 

Apologies if you don;t know the answer to this - just musing out loud really. I think that if the EFL really wanted to help the clubs out in this crisis they should find a way to allow home teams to basically take the bulk of the receipts from streaming their home games. It wou;ldn;t be as much as normal gate receipts obviously but its not an insignificant sum. 

 

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

2 hours ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

If clubs are allowed to sell streams to fans directly then say goodbye to any remaining glimpse of equality in football. As the article from the Colchester Chairman states, they are already been put at a competitive disadvantage through the money from streaming is worked out. Imagine how much more money a team like Man U or Liverpool could make if they were allowed to sell stream directly to their fans globally? 

If streaming of all games is to be a thing, it needs to be done through collective bargaining. Either all the income is pooled and divided equally amongst teams or the rights are sold to a third party and the income made is again divided equally to teams. While streaming is a necessity while fans can't attend - I hope it does not continue beyond then, unless the way the income is made is spread in a more equitable way. 

Devil's advocate, is it that unfair that the most popular teams make more money by streaming directly to consumers? Would it lead to more or less financial disparity than the current situation of billionaire ownership coming in and distorting the league every few years? In an ideal world, clubs would have a shared ownership model and make their money through this kind of streaming, clubs can increase their income by selling more streaming passes and naturally, clubs that are more successful will end up with more viewers.

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

1 hour ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Devil's advocate, is it that unfair that the most popular teams make more money by streaming directly to consumers? Would it lead to more or less financial disparity than the current situation of billionaire ownership coming in and distorting the league every few years? In an ideal world, clubs would have a shared ownership model and make their money through this kind of streaming, clubs can increase their income by selling more streaming passes and naturally, clubs that are more successful will end up with more viewers.

That would be unsustainable though - I'm talking mostly about the Premier League here of course. The reason the Premier League is so popular is that it is a competitive league. It has a 'big 6' rather than a 'big 2' most other leagues have. Germany and France have just a single team (I avoid using 'big 1' here).

The equal split of TV revenue in the Premier League is about the one thing that leagues gets spot on. By removing that for streaming then the league falls apart. Liverpool, Man U etc could make more for just selling passes to their games than they would be by being part of the collective bargaining for TV rights. 

A league is a sum of its parts. A big club is nothing without teams to play against. Those 'big' teams are 'big' because they have be able to play all the other teams in their league. By divvying up streaming it breaks that equity. Man U could easily sell a million passes for a game globally. While Norwich probably couldn't sell 10,000 (assuming fans are back in stadiums). So while Norwich might get £100k for a home game, Man U would easily get £10m (this would be on top of all the other financial advantages they have). 

I have no issue with big clubs being big - they get plenty of financial benefit through sponsorships, bigger stadiums, European competition, but when you consider the global scale of football - it tips the balance too far to them. 

 

[WD40 720]

8 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

That would be unsustainable though - I'm talking mostly about the Premier League here of course. The reason the Premier League is so popular is that it is a competitive league. It has a 'big 6' rather than a 'big 2' most other leagues have. Germany and France have just a single team (I avoid using 'big 1' here).

The equal split of TV revenue in the Premier League is about the one thing that leagues gets spot on. By removing that for streaming then the league falls apart. Liverpool, Man U etc could make more for just selling passes to their games than they would be by being part of the collective bargaining for TV rights. 

A league is a sum of its parts. A big club is nothing without teams to play against. Those 'big' teams are 'big' because they have be able to play all the other teams in their league. By divvying up streaming it breaks that equity. Man U could easily sell a million passes for a game globally. While Norwich probably couldn't sell 10,000 (assuming fans are back in stadiums). So while Norwich might get £100k for a home game, Man U would easily get £10m (this would be on top of all the other financial advantages they have). 

I have no issue with big clubs being big - they get plenty of financial benefit through sponsorships, bigger stadiums, European competition, but when you consider the global scale of football - it tips the balance too far to them. 

 

This is correct and have it on certain authority this is also what the Premier League see as key to their success. Equal split of tv revenue amongst league members - and the top teams continuing to accept that state - is the difference between prem and say Serie A which was dominant at the launch of Prem, and now a poor relation. 

[Branston Pickle 3,633]

7 hours ago, Matt Juler said:

I'm aggrieved because they've moved the goal posts.  If I'm told something will be free based on the T&Cs it should then remain free.   

All along I thought there was an ambiguity in the way this was put by the club/whoever came up with the wording - I think we get free access to non-weekend away games, so my assumption was those held on Friday-Sunday will be excluded; the wording was fine as it was but then clumsily adds about Saturday 3pm games which is unnecessary.

[Badger 2,405]

8 hours ago, Matt Juler said:

I'm aggrieved because they've moved the goal posts.  If I'm told something will be free based on the T&Cs it should then remain free. 

No - they said that the free offer applied to midweek away games, not weekend ones.

[......and Smith must score. 1,332]

4 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

So if 20,000 season ticket holders take up their "free" i-follow pass for a home game do both NCFC and I-follow get nothing from that or are the club subsidising the free access or is it being subsidised by i-player (i.e. we still get paid our share for the audience we are bringing in even if most of them are not paying anything)? Appears to me there could be a risk that we are actually being disadvantaged by the number of season ticket holders we have. 

Apologies if you don;t know the answer to this - just musing out loud really. I think that if the EFL really wanted to help the clubs out in this crisis they should find a way to allow home teams to basically take the bulk of the receipts from streaming their home games. It wou;ldn;t be as much as normal gate receipts obviously but its not an insignificant sum. 

 

Good points here Jim and to be honest I don't know the answers. I wouldn't think ifollow will be operating the scheme for nothing, much less subsidising clubs. In some ways the club have shot themselves in the foot by offering free ifollow access to the majority of games for season ticket holders. In fairness it's a very generous concession by the club.

We've been rather too quick out of the blocks renewing season tickets for some time. Many clubs haven't sold season tickets at all because of the pandemic but I think we started drawing direct debits even before lockdown and quite a few will have paid up front some time ago, certainly during lockdown if not before.

Either the club have missed a trick in not charging season ticket holders for ifollow access or we're a lot better off financially than they're letting on. While we're getting parachute payments maybe they're happy enough getting a lot of cash up front very early ?

[essex canary 491]

1 hour ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

Good points here Jim and to be honest I don't know the answers. I wouldn't think ifollow will be operating the scheme for nothing, much less subsidising clubs. In some ways the club have shot themselves in the foot by offering free ifollow access to the majority of games for season ticket holders. In fairness it's a very generous concession by the club.

We've been rather too quick out of the blocks renewing season tickets for some time. Many clubs haven't sold season tickets at all because of the pandemic but I think we started drawing direct debits even before lockdown and quite a few will have paid up front some time ago, certainly during lockdown if not before.

Either the club have missed a trick in not charging season ticket holders for ifollow access or we're a lot better off financially than they're letting on. While we're getting parachute payments maybe they're happy enough getting a lot of cash up front very early ?

Other clubs are giving ifollow access for free to season ticket holders on the same basis as us. Cambridge United are definitely in this category.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

11 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Unless I am missing something 

Well one thing you are missing in the equation is the amount that the club gets to keep and the amount that is 80%, with iFollow keeping the other 20% to run the service, so you need to take £1million off of your £5 million there.

And £10 is actually £8.33 after VAT. 

So its more like £6600 per 1000 home fan passes sold, minus all the refunds issued to those who complain. I'm currently initiating a bank chargeback to get my £10 back for the first game of the season after having two emails to iFollow ignored, and won't be purchasing another one until the club ditches iFollow like 17 other clubs have done. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by TeemuVanBasten

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

8 hours ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Man U could easily sell a million passes for a game globally. While Norwich probably couldn't sell 10,000 (assuming fans are back in stadiums). So while Norwich might get £100k for a home game, Man U would easily get £10m (this would be on top of all the other financial advantages they have). 

Although I get your overall point, those numbers seem a bit off.

Not quite sure why your are comparing a Prem team with a Championship team anyway, Man Utd don't have ifollow! No prem sides do! Compare us with Wycombe for a more relevant example. 

For a start there is a third party provider taking a slice of that money to deliver the stream (for ifollow it is 80/20 I believe), do you think data centres, engineers and customer service is free? There's a lot of infrastructure involved. 

And our 10,000 streamers are going to be almost exclusively people from the first world. Man Utd has a much more global fan base.... They will not get away with charging a tenner in Vietnam, or Nigeria, and if they do it would end up being the entire village gathered around one set. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by TeemuVanBasten

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

4 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Although I get your overall point, those numbers seem a bit off.

Not quite sure why your are comparing a Prem team with a Championship team anyway, Man Utd don't have ifollow! No prem sides do! Compare us with Wycombe for a more relevant example. 

For a start there is a third party provider taking a slice of that money to deliver the stream (for ifollow it is 80/20 I believe), do you think data centres, engineers and customer service is free? There's a lot of infrastructure involved. 

And our 10,000 streamers are going to be almost exclusively people from the first world. Man Utd has a much more global fan base.... They will not get away with charging a tenner in Vietnam, or Nigeria, and if they do it would end up being the entire village gathered around one set. 

I was talking to the point that streaming should be allowed to continue in the post-Covid world. If it was allowed in the EFL it would soon be allowed in the Prem. 

If such streaming is allowed then clubs will look to provide the service themselves and not use a third party company - Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool already have their own TV channels. 

Even with a global fan base Man U would sell £10m worth of passes per game easily. The 1m was a low estimate just drive home the point how much of a bad idea it would be. 

[Legend Iwan 30]

On 23/09/2020 at 16:49, BroadstairsR said:

"Streaming Revenues
The way it works currently is that the home team keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website and they also get the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team. For example: for Saturday’s game against Bolton, we sold 452 iFollow passes, (so we keep all of the revenue from those), and Bolton sold 2252 iFollow passes, (of which we get the revenue from the first 500).

This has put a very new aspect on the revenue that is available to clubs this season. Bolton made more money in gate receipts from our home fixture than we did because they had the revenue from 1,752 iFollow passes whereas we had the revenue from 952 iFollow passes. In normal times, we would have expected about £54,000 in home gate receipts from this fixture but we will receive just shy of £8,000, whereas Bolton would have expected about £600 for the 5% commission we pay them but will have received about £14,000 more than that.

We sold just over 300 streams for the away game against Bradford, so we earnt £0.00 for that away game and I expect that to be the case for every away game this season. So based on twenty three away games, Bolton look set to receive about £345,000 from the streaming of their away games this season whilst we can look forward to approximately £0.00.

Perhaps these facts might help some of you that think we should still be in the Championship understand what we are up against."

While this is true for League 1, I believe the Championship has a different system in place for iFollow, whereby the club who sells the service keeps the streaming fees.

Also iFollow apparently increased their share of the income from roughly 20:80 to 30:70 this season, due to the rise in the number of matches being shown and work required to facilitate that.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

7 minutes ago, Legend Iwan said:

While this is true for League 1, I believe the Championship has a different system in place for iFollow, whereby the club who sells the service keeps the streaming fees.

Also iFollow apparently increased their share of the income from roughly 20:80 to 30:70 this season, due to the rise in the number of matches being shown and work required to facilitate that.

That was my understanding also. 

And the home/away thing isn't the same. 

If the official site sold Norwich fans 4000 streams to an away game, we'd get £28000 in revenue (70 percent).