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Red, White and Blue vs. Rupert Murdochs' Sky Sports

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I totally applaud the Portsmouth landlady who yesterday received an initial backing of her pub buying into a European TV sports package to show to her punters. Saving here over £300 per month compared to Sky''s poor coverage.

Its funny that when there is competition the Premier League and Rupert Murdoch say that it isn''t fair. And I am being polite in that statement.

I have lived in the US with Fox Soccer channel, with a fantastic product and most recently with Starhub and Singtel in Singapore. Both have excellent coverage of the season, in fact Singapore had every Premier League game. The analysis is all filmed here in the UK with Andy Townsend and Alan Curbishley.

No wonder fandom is so big outside the UK and the question was being posed should we take a game outside of the UK. Well with being able to fill stadiums of 70,000 and the fact that Asia is the biggest market to sell shirts, I think there should be a game there. Considering many fans have supported clubs for 2 -3 generations, almost the same as here in the UK.

But this initial acknowledgement by Europe that if the landlady of the fine Fuller''s pub can sell French imported wine, German Beer then she can buy Greek coverage of the Premier League.

I salute the Red, White and Blue and will follow this story closely. Certainly give the two fingers to ''the lord of competition'' and the Premier League.

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[quote user="smooth"]I totally applaud the Portsmouth landlady who yesterday received an initial backing of her pub buying into a European TV sports package to show to her punters. Saving here over £300 per month compared to Sky''s poor coverage.

Its funny that when there is competition the Premier League and Rupert Murdoch say that it isn''t fair. And I am being polite in that statement.

I have lived in the US with Fox Soccer channel, with a fantastic product and most recently with Starhub and Singtel in Singapore. Both have excellent coverage of the season, in fact Singapore had every Premier League game. The analysis is all filmed here in the UK with Andy Townsend and Alan Curbishley.

No wonder fandom is so big outside the UK and the question was being posed should we take a game outside of the UK. Well with being able to fill stadiums of 70,000 and the fact that Asia is the biggest market to sell shirts, I think there should be a game there. Considering many fans have supported clubs for 2 -3 generations, almost the same as here in the UK.

But this initial acknowledgement by Europe that if the landlady of the fine Fuller''s pub can sell French imported wine, German Beer then she can buy Greek coverage of the Premier League.

I salute the Red, White and Blue and will follow this story closely. Certainly give the two fingers to ''the lord of competition'' and the Premier League.[/quote]Absolutely agree with the comments regarding the coverage battle - I know a couple of landlords who had to pass up on Sky site licences due to the exorbitant fees involved, and anything that dilutes Murdoch''s monopoly on televised sport is a godsend in my eyes.Don''t get me started on the ''39th game'' proposal, though! We already play too much football each year, without flying everyone out to Asia for a competitive fixture at the end of a tough season. You''re right about the level of fanaticism for the Premiership in Asian markets, though. Lots of clubs will play pre-season matches in Asia to promote their ''product'', but I believe our domestic league should stay domestic.

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[quote user="mikewalker"]

Agree, but knowing our luck, we''d get promoted to the Premier League the very season Sky are not chucking £80m at each club.

[/quote]All the more reason to go up this year, it''s a shame that we haven''t really gone for it and chucked 5 mill at it, I don''t call signing Wilbrahamand a failed attempt insigning Bennett as going for it.I''ll only be impressed if we sign a decent striker on loan, otherwise the chance may go begging.

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If this ruling forces Sky to rethink their coverage then I''m all for it.  3 sports channels costing 30 quid a month (last time I checked), covering 1 game that you want to see every 3 weeks, and if you''re only interested in your home team, 2 or 3 matches a season ?It''s not good enough - if Sky were to give more thought to the method in which they distribute their events (for example, a "season ticket" to all the live matches of a given team, for those who don''t want to watch the 20:20s cricket between Pakistan and West Indies, but do want to watch Norwich matches, and maybe a time delayed live feed after games that aren''t shown as live), then they''d probably make even more money.  The "channels" model is lazy.

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Also if the Sky money starts to fall to much, then the Premier League clubs will vote to be able to negotiate their own TV deals across the world. This would cause the already big clubs to increase their hold over the league. Look at La Liga, Barcelona and Real Madrid have their own deals and make 3, 4 or 5 times as much as the smaller clubs.

 

There was always going to be a reorganisation of the way games are shown as the exisiting model takes no or very little account of the internet and the increasing number of people around the world with access to a computer in their home, but not to a satellite dish.

 

The big question will always be if showing games at 3pm on a Saturday will have a knock on effect to attendances lower down the leagues?

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[quote user="blahblahblah"]If this ruling forces Sky to rethink their coverage then I''m all for it.  3 sports channels costing 30 quid a month (last time I checked), covering 1 game that you want to see every 3 weeks, and if you''re only interested in your home team, 2 or 3 matches a season ?It''s not good enough - if Sky were to give more thought to the method in which they distribute their events (for example, a "season ticket" to all the live matches of a given team, for those who don''t want to watch the 20:20s cricket between Pakistan and West Indies, but do want to watch Norwich matches, and maybe a time delayed live feed after games that aren''t shown as live), then they''d probably make even more money.  The "channels" model is lazy.[/quote]I wonder if you''re then looking at technical limitations though Blah. Perhaps they could take an approach similar to how the Sky Box Office stuff works - that they allow you to decrypt certain programmes and not others, although I don''t how how feasible this is to implement.Plus, I assume they are using the Premier League to subsidise other programming, such as the cricket you mention. I wonder what would happen if people could suddenly choose not to watch the cricket - would Sky no longer bother with it, and perhaps there will be a return to terrestrial?

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[quote]I wonder if you''re then looking at technical limitations though Blah.

Perhaps they could take an approach similar to how the Sky Box Office

stuff works - that they allow you to decrypt certain programmes and not

others, although I don''t how how feasible this is to implement.[/quote]Well, speaking purely as an end-user -  If I use my red button, on the bbc to watch say Glastonbury Highlights, I get what is effectively a web page with a choice of video-streams.  If I choose one, then my choice appears on channel 300 - 305, which I think are reserved for BBC Red Button.  Sky could theoretically run a similar service through their Sky Sports News channel - press a red button and off you go.The thing is that they have had carte blanche over 20 years with the Premier League, and have shown little or no innovation regarding choice over that time.  And then they wonder why people set up "illegal" streams ?

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[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]I wonder if you''re then looking at technical limitations though Blah.

Perhaps they could take an approach similar to how the Sky Box Office

stuff works - that they allow you to decrypt certain programmes and not

others, although I don''t how how feasible this is to implement.[/quote]Well, speaking purely as an end-user -  If I use my red button, on the bbc to watch say Glastonbury Highlights, I get what is effectively a web page with a choice of video-streams.  If I choose one, then my choice appears on channel 300 - 305, which I think are reserved for BBC Red Button.  Sky could theoretically run a similar service through their Sky Sports News channel - press a red button and off you go.The thing is that they have had carte blanche over 20 years with the Premier League, and have shown little or no innovation regarding choice over that time.  And then they wonder why people set up "illegal" streams ?[/quote]I''m not sure how Sky works - can they allow a viewing card to watch a single program unencrypted? If so, then they could presumably implement it on the existing Sky Sports channels. I suspect this will boil down to a financial issue rather than the technicalities involved though.Agree fully with them getting what they deserve though, I used to pay £50+ a month for Sky, including the Sports and Movies channels, for something that I watched very little. The pricing was arranged in such a way though, that getting one or the

other of Movies and Sport was almost as expensive as getting both! In the end I cancelled my subscription due to it being a waste of money, but if there was a way I could have paid for certain games I would probably have done that.

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Football league clubs already have the mechanism in place via the ''player'' subscription service on the official websites.All they have to do is add a video stream to the commentary and they could charge extra for it on a per game or season ticket basis.Just one camera on the game without any replays would be enough.For example:Option 1 - Commentary per gameOption 2 - Commentary and video per gameOption 3 - Commentary per seasonOption 4 - Commentary and video per season

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This is how it works for me in Sweden... I was born in Luleå, some 800 km north of where I live, so to be able to watch all hockeygames I must pay around £45 each month...  Of course I get some moviechannels and a lot of sports that I dont really care about... Last year they had something called "seasonticket". With that option I could choose to watch every single hockeygame, or choose every game for a single team, including the play-offs.... The last option was quite a bit cheaper. And in addition to that, there is a cheaper web based option aswell, but the quality of the streams wasn´t that good....Anyway... If we go up this year I will have a big problem... Either choose canal + (hockey) or viasat (premier league), or have them both for the neat cost of around £100 per month....This season a "free" channel is showing the championship, but most of the time it´s the same games shown live on the bet365 website....

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I think clubs should follow the "player" model they have at the mo, but add a video stream to it! Then, do season tickets for it, roughly the same price as an actual season ticket, or make it so you can buy a ticket for a one off game, just like you can when you actually go!! I think this would mean people who live in the areas of clubs, would still go, so wouldnt effect the K.Os at 3, but would allow people who are unable to get to games to watch them! All this means that either way, the club would still get the money!!!!!

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Yep - definately pleased that someone is standing up to the Murdoch.

It should in theory, bring down the price of Sky / ESPN, and football ticket prices.

Just hope we don''t see empty grounds due to 3:00 o''clock kick offs

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[quote user="NottsCanary"]I think clubs should follow the "player" model they have at the mo, but add a video stream to it! Then, do season tickets for it, roughly the same price as an actual season ticket, or make it so you can buy a ticket for a one off game, just like you can when you actually go!! I think this would mean people who live in the areas of clubs, would still go, so wouldnt effect the K.Os at 3, but would allow people who are unable to get to games to watch them! All this means that either way, the club would still get the money!!!!!
[/quote]

but once a game is broadcast in video the streamers get hold of it and its all over the internet.. i''m not complaining cos i''ll watch an illegal stream as much as the next person.. but i don''t think the club would get that many subscribers

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