Future of
football and match going fans
With Amazon joining the party with Sky and BT, the future
battle for TV rights is getting very competitive. Amazon has won the rights to
show 20 games from next season but only over two match days. Boxing Day and another
bank holiday will see Amazon have the rights to show every game from the two
days to their subscribers. The package was known as ‘package F’ which is relatively
low on the priority list for TV broadcasters with package A (Saturday 1230 KO
won by BT) and package B (Saturday 1730
KO won by Sky) the most popular followed by Sunday games.
Amazon’s thinking will be to get their foot in the door with
the main objective to increase their customer base and Premier League football
has that global interest that only football has and the opportunity to get
involved would have been difficult to resist.
Amazon do give free 30 day trials and many may begin the
trial around the Christmas period in order to get the boxing day games and some
may cancel after but many will continue which will fulfil Amazon’s objectives
of increasing their customer base.
The other interesting thing for next season was ‘package C’
which Sky won and allows them to show 24 Sunday 1400 games which is familiar
but also allows them to show eight Saturday night 1945 games. While, Saturday
night games may be prime time viewing on TV in the United Kingdom, it poses difficulty
for supporters travelling to watch live games.
The late KOs potentially pose transport issues with trains
often not running a late service which may make it difficult for away
supporters to get back to the part of country they are from. This may also mean
some awkward conversations within families with some wanting to go / watch
football with others not so keen.
We calculated that last season; Arsenal only had about 5/6
traditional 1500 KOs. There are currently Friday night KOs (that are very
difficult for travelling fans), Saturday 1245, Saturday 1730, soon to come
Saturday 1945, Sunday 1200, 1400/30 and 1600/30 and Monday 2000 KOs and many
games are moved for TV coverage which means supporters have to wait until about
6 weeks prior to know when and where their team is playing which makes it very
difficult to plan their own lives.
With Amazon being a less traditional place to watch
football, it may mean others get involved. Twitter had some NLF coverage which
moved to Amazon and Snapchat had sport highlights which may result in more
social media platforms and online streaming companies get involved in football
and push Sky and BT to the limit. The ultimate result for supporters may be to
have multiple subscriptions in various places in order to watch their team
which could prove costly.
As much as we all love the beautiful game, the cost for
supporters via TV or attending matches is out of control which match ticket +
transport costing a small fortune and potentially forcing families to make a
choice and potentially putting football before other priorities.
Will it get better? My guess is that it’s only just
beginning…
