Cheaper football for pubs

bam0 · 3 Feb 2011 at 11:39

I remember hearing about this case originally so this is an interesting judgement from the EU. Certainly going to annoy sky as I imagine they make quite a bit out of selling football to pubs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022

Tombstone · 3 Feb 2011 at 11:53

Hmm, its non-binding though, so at the moment its still not a definitive decision. Have to see what the outcome of the case is.

Weebull · 3 Feb 2011 at 11:56

Excellent. Sky charge an absolute fortune for their pub services. About time they let themselves in for a bit of real competition.

AGD · 3 Feb 2011 at 12:08

Interesting...could shake up things quite a bit. I imagine this would apply to home services too?

Stretch · 3 Feb 2011 at 12:12

Why couldn't this equally apply to residential customers?

Tombstone · 3 Feb 2011 at 12:13

Stretch said:
Why couldn't this equally apply to residential customers?

Does it need to? I was always under the impression that residential customers could already get a satellite and foreign subscription?

daz · 3 Feb 2011 at 12:23

This will be bad since the EPL will now negotiate football rights for the entirety of Europe in one go.

Mr-White · 3 Feb 2011 at 13:26

It will also affect the ban on games being shown on tv at 3pm

MW

J-FRO · 3 Feb 2011 at 13:27

Covered by mainly Article 26, 34 and 56 of the TFEU.

http://euwiki.org/TFEU

I can't see how or why the EPL would want to negotiate football rights for the entirety of Europe in one go though?

There's too many games of importance on any single day for one service provider to want to or be able to screen surely.

but either way it should bring the cost down for pubs to play the games which in turn may be better for pub goers all around. The high cost of public licenses to screen the football can't help the price of a pint either.

Psycho Sonny · 3 Feb 2011 at 13:37

is anyone an expert on this?

would like some advice on how to get EPL matches and stuff like that for cheap or free, using free foreign sat dishes or cheap foreign subscriptions.

i looked into it a while back but a HD sat box was like £500, which negates any savings made.

Tombstone · 3 Feb 2011 at 13:45

J-FRO said:
but either way it should bring the cost down for pubs to play the games which in turn may be better for pub goers all around. The high cost of public licenses to screen the football can't help the price of a pint either.

Only if she wins the case, ultimately its still down to whether or not our judge follows the EU advisor. Our decision on the case isnt being made for another 3 months yet.

Weebull · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:00

daz said:
This will be bad since the EPL will now negotiate football rights for the entirety of Europe in one go.

How is that even possible? There's no one broadcaster who covers every country in Europe is there? Never mind that they get to show 3pm games and the UK can't.

AGD · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:03

Weebull said:
How is that even possible? There's no one broadcaster who covers every country in Europe is there? Never mind that they get to show 3pm games and the UK can't.

Yeah, I can't see one company controlling all the rights for europe. Given the number of different games on at once, they'll be able to sell a fair few different packages to companies.

3pm games will be able to be shown in the UK if this ruling is upheld.

Tombstone · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:06

AGD said:
3pm games will be able to be shown in the UK if this ruling is upheld.

Wouldnt imagine the EPL would be too happy about that, think they'd be looking at a lot more ££s for the tv rights then.

cm1179 · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:27

Psycho Sonny said:
is anyone an expert on this?

would like some advice on how to get EPL matches and stuff like that for cheap or free, using free foreign sat dishes or cheap foreign subscriptions.

i looked into it a while back but a HD sat box was like £500, which negates any savings made.

my friend spent about that amount on a box and dish but he gets everything and regular updates. he had the dish professionally installed and it's remote movable though it is 1000mm dia and this didn't go down well when he had it installed on the front of his house which is a listed building. he now has it in his back garden out of view. thought about getting one myself but the other sources will do for now.

daz · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:32

Weebull said:
How is that even possible? There's no one broadcaster who covers every country in Europe is there? Never mind that they get to show 3pm games and the UK can't.

Perhaps not one single broadcaster, but it will reduce competition, as per the comment in the article itself:-

Industry experts say satellite companies face having to reform - leading possibly to the creation of just a handful of pan-European broadcasters.

elmuzzy66. · 3 Feb 2011 at 14:44

Its not the only the euro broadcasters. I get a couple of arab stations, showsports and abu dabi sports and they show plenty of epl games. If you think itv/sky have poor commentary teams/pundits, you should hear these lot.

Weebull · 3 Feb 2011 at 15:06

AGD said:
3pm games will be able to be shown in the UK if this ruling is upheld.

Will they though? No 3pm games is a rule entirely separate from Sky, designed so that no-one in the UK can see games then. This ruling is simply about using an alternative to Sky when a game is "legally" (I've no idea if the 3pm thing is actual law) available.

J-FRO · 3 Feb 2011 at 19:10

If will go through, trust me.

The courts don't have a choice. The EU market means that any EU citizen has the right to move between member states and there is also the freedom of movement of goods and services.

Therefore, if there is a TV broadcaster in the EU that is willing to supply its service in the UK they are bound to let it go through. They can't put any form of protection up. They can't even use ways to indirectly discriminate against foreign goods and services because its illegal unless they can claim there is some form of public policy or health issues. Which, it doesn't seem there is.

And if they ask the European Court of Justice to make a reference on the matter, they are inevitably going to turn around and say that the supply of satellite TV is covered by goods and services.

SexyGreyFox · 3 Feb 2011 at 19:19

Can I talk about this now?
Over the years I've had 2 emails from Dons telling me to shut up about my satellite system because it's illegal (which it wasn't).
The best providor for Prem football is Tring which is on 16E (last night I had a choice of 4 matches).
There is also Sky Germany 19E, Sky Italia 13E, Nova 13E and Viasat on 5E.

http://liveonsat.com/LJ_foot_b_epl_only.php

For at least 3 years pubs have *'legally'* been able to show Prem football on a saturday afternoon because of 'Murphy's Law' as long as they had a proper card.

* Sky weren't able to touch them until this case went through.