TV Fixtures and TV Rights thread.

Don
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Cosimo has been very kind in posting the tv fixtures every month or two but they're often lost in the Banter thread so I've created this thread where he (if he wants) or anybody else can post the TV schedule. BT announced that they won the rights to the CL again recently - things like that can go in here too.

No discussion of illegal methods of watching the football. Anybody that even hints at anything illegal will be banned.
 
Don
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Interesting news about the next set of PL TV rights:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...remier-league-games-shown-live-tv-first-time/
  • 42 additional games will be broadcast live taking the total of live games up to 200 per season
  • Every match from 3 rounds of midweek games and a bank holiday round (either boxing day or new years day) will be broadcast live simultaneously
  • 8 new Saturday 7.45pm live games.
I read an article on this a few weeks ago, reporting that the PL were looking at showing all midweek fixtures live as an alternative to the Saturday evening games so it's a bit of a surprise that they've decided on both. The decision to broadcast all the midweek fixtures was a step in the right direction and a bit of a no-brainer - it gives us the option of choosing exactly which games we want to watch and it also allows Sky/BT to get some of their minimum quota of Burnley, West Brom etc games out of the way without having to sacrifice more interesting matches. I'm not sure why they're only doing this for one of the Boxing/New Year day rounds - I can only think that some of the smaller sides were against it because of possible effects on ticket sales for these games.
 
Don
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I look forward to the inevitable BT and Sky price hikes.

It's not so much a price increase from Sky and/or BT that we should worry about but the possibility that a 3rd or even 4th company get one of the packages of games - we could have to subscribe to even more places.
 
Don
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Sky and BT have signed an agreement to share their sports channels, so you will be able to watch BT football on Sky for no extra charge. Not until 2019 though :(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42364401
Unfortunately I don't think that's quite correct. I believe this simply means that you can log into your Sky account and add BT Sports through Sky, rather than have to subscribe via BT. I suppose it's possible that Sky could bundle it together with their Sports packages but I highly doubt it and even if they did, they'll most certainly increase the cost.
 
Man of Honour
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Yeah we'll definitely see indirect price rises, but that's just standard Sky, but there will be no extra cost for Champions League. The article states that as well as other articles, not sure about Premier League.

As it stands though, you can add BT Sports to Sky and vice versa and pay extra, so it would make no sense to announce it now as if thats a new thing
 
Don
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Yeah we'll definitely see indirect price rises, but that's just standard Sky, but there will be no extra cost for Champions League. The article states that as well as other articles, not sure about Premier League.

As it stands though, you can add BT Sports to Sky and vice versa and pay extra, so it would make no sense to announce it now as if thats a new thing
You can add BT Sports to Sky but you have to subscribe via BT. This agreement simply allows you to do it directly via Sky. All they're doing is allowing each other to sell their channels, rather than it only being available directly from themselves (even if you physically watch it through your Sky box).

You've misunderstood if you think this means BT Sports will be available on Sky for no further cost and vice versa.
 
Don
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It's not so much a price increase from Sky and/or BT that we should worry about but the possibility that a 3rd or even 4th company get one of the packages of games - we could have to subscribe to even more places.


Yes but it's all OK, we have always been told that the splitting of rights into separate packages with multiple suppliers is for the good of the consumer
 
Soldato
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Worst case scenario would be Facebook getting rights to the PL, I absolutely loathe them as a company. At least if Amazon got them they could bundle it as part of Prime, which has other benefits. Personally I'm not convinced that several different companies having rights is a good thing, it only means having to subscribe to multiple services and I've never noticed believed that it saves the consumer any money, it's just more of a faff in the long run.
 
Don
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Personally I'm not convinced that several different companies having rights is a good thing, it only means having to subscribe to multiple services and I've never noticed believed that it saves the consumer any money, it's just more of a faff in the long run.
It 100% doesn't save consumers money. The argument put forwards by the PL is that by selling the rights to more than 1 provider it gives consumers the option of choosing which provider they want to subscribe to. The problem with that argument is most people that are willing to pay to watch televised football more than likely want to watch all the football available to them, not just some of it and as a result they have to subscribe to both Sky and BT.

The line from the PL is a load of *******s. The reason for breaking the rights down into multiple packages and selling to more than 1 provider is purely to generate as much money for the League as possible. Around 10 years or so ago domestic TV rights stopped growing and iirc may have even declined at one point because all the fixtures were being sold as one and nobody could compete with Sky - Sky knowing they had no competition, weren't willing to pay any more than they already were. By breaking the games up into packages it increases the competition to Sky - BBC for instance can't bid £5-6bn for the entire rights but maybe they can afford to bid £800m for 1 package of games and that's what is forcing Sky to pay a premium on each package and is generating more money for the PL.
 
Soldato
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Yep, it definitely seems like it's the PL's way of making more money, I think you're right. I guess the only flipside to the argument is that if the PL can generate more money they can probably also pay more for new players and increase player wages, thereby (hopefully) attracting the best players in the world to the PL. Of course there are outliers to this like PSG, Barca, Real Madrid, and Bayern, but it can't be a coincidence that there are a record number of PL teams in the knockout phase of the CL and it was only a couple of years before that that the PL rights went up in value so much.
 
Don
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Yep, it definitely seems like it's the PL's way of making more money, I think you're right. I guess the only flipside to the argument is that if the PL can generate more money they can probably also pay more for new players and increase player wages, thereby (hopefully) attracting the best players in the world to the PL. Of course there are outliers to this like PSG, Barca, Real Madrid, and Bayern, but it can't be a coincidence that there are a record number of PL teams in the knockout phase of the CL and it was only a couple of years before that that the PL rights went up in value so much.
While I'm sure it's helped, I don't think the amount of TV money generated is the biggest factor in our upturn in Europe. For years the Premier League has generated more money than any other League in Europe however because of the way that money is split our top sides haven't been making as much as Real or Barca - the recent TV deal has meant that they're now making similar amounts. You have to remember though that we went through a period of being the dominant League in Europe despite that. From 2005 to 2012 we were regularly getting multiple sides in the latter stages of the CL and had 8 finalists in 8 seasons. IINM there was a 2 year period where the only non PL sided to beat a PL side in Europe was Barca.

The reason for our success back then and lack of it in recent years hasn't been money but the quality of managers at the top sides. In Mourinho, Benitez, Fergie and Wenger we had the best managers in Europe during that period where we were successful. The overall quality of managers at the top/cl sides in the years that followed was no where near the same - Moyes, AVB, Redknapp, Rodgers, Mancini, Pellegrini etc. With Klopp, Pep, Mourinho and Poch we've got 5 of the best managers in Europe again.
 
Man of Honour
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Recently set wheels in motion to leave BT and was staggered by the fee to continue with BT Sport on Sky, £22.99/month and I'd already binned the HD and second box surcharges, I dread to think what it would have been with them included as well.
Not really surprising considering their landgrab for European games I guess, but it was so high that I cancelled it without a lot of thought.
 
Don
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A breakdown of La Liga's TV money came out yesterday:

http://www.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2018/01/02/5a4bce97ca474112278b4579.html

Barca and Real earning 3 times as much as the smallest clubs, double the 4th biggest earners and even 50% more than Atletico in 3rd. It really puts into perspective just how big the PL TV rights are because despite all that Barca earned around €20m less than all our top 4 (around the same as Everton in 7th) and the PL's bottom ranked side earned more than Atletico.

Breakdown of last seasons PL tv money is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40125394
 
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