[Son of Fergie]

I can't help thinking that this years F1 season will be spoiled by the fact that Sky now has the rights to half the races. For those of us who don't have Sky TV it means we have to wait for the extended highlights on the beeb. okay, in some cases this might not be a bad thing, especially the middle east races, which can be a bit on the boring side. But my main concern is just how long will it be before Sky has the rights to all the races. They dominate just about every other sport, and it's not cheap to buy the whole sports package. The BBC could have given it to Channel 4, but they didn't want another terrestrial channel to have the contract. Unlike football, it's not too easy to nip down to the local pub and watch an entire race on their TV. It's definately a sport to be enjoyed in the home. Bernie Eccleston has worked wonders in F1, but he seems to have forgotten that the majority of viewers are not as rich as himself. He's let the side down. TV should be free. If we pay for a license then football, formula 1 or whatever your sport is should be free of charge. I understand that the revenue generated from TV rights will be invested into F1, but they could have acheived that by going to Channel 4 where us poor folk could still enjoy the early morning races. TYPICAL ... as the years roll on life just gets worse.

This post has been edited by Son of Fergie: 03 February 2012 - 14:38

[welshbairn]

I don't think you can blame Bernie for this one. ITV and Channel 4 were both willing to talk to the BBC about sharing the coverage, but the BBC refused, and chose to go with Sky. I'm furious, as you say it's not something you can follow in a pub. There's too much information coming in snippets and asides re tyres, fuel and stops etc to take in. If I can't find a decent illegal feed I'll probably just listen on 5 live..

[capybara]

It has been a bone of contention for a while now and over a wide range of sports. I happen to like cricket and unless you have Sky you will hardly see a ball bowled. Youngsters grow up unable to see their heroes. And while i know money goes into the sport, or the clubs, it is not always divided up fairly. But i would also say that the BBC has all but turned its back on sport. Maybe if they paid the likes of Wogan or Ross less in days gone by, there would have been more money in the budget.

[Cammy35]

There is a similar problem in football in that the SPL is now split between Sky and ESPN. That means to watch your team in the SPL including the Old \Firm games you need two subscriptions. Whereas before you could get all the SPL games on Setanta. I know this came out of the Setanta fallout but think it was deliberate on the part of SKY and ESPN to maximise their revenues. Sky knew that if ESPN got all the SPL games there was the possibility of them losing customers in Scotland to ESPN as was happening already I believe with Setanta. they split it so everyone has to pay twice.

But this case is worse if what you say is true as the BBC are just making their own license payers suffer. You expect this sort of thing from Sky but not the Beeb.

[Cammy35]

capybara, on 03 February 2012 - 14:53, said:

It has been a bone of contention for a while now and over a wide range of sports. I happen to like cricket and unless you have Sky you will hardly see a ball bowled. Youngsters grow up unable to see their heroes. And while i know money goes into the sport, or the clubs, it is not always divided up fairly. But i would also say that the BBC has all but turned its back on sport. Maybe if they paid the likes of Wogan or Ross less in days gone by, there would have been more money in the budget.

Correct. Most of Sky/ESPN subscribers money these days is probably going into the wage packets of the top earning Premiership stars like Tevez, Rooney & co. The premiership get, I believe, around £800m annually from TV deals. If wages have got out of hand in football and its the armchair punter and season ticket holder who are paying it.

[Mr. Brightside]

If the BBC wasn't spunking away all its budget on the cunting Olympics it'd still have the F1. However it is pretty disgraceful that Sky have the rights to basically everything.

This post has been edited by Mr. Brightside: 03 February 2012 - 15:08

[kiddy]

Thank God we've got rid of those pishy practice sessions from BBC then.

I mean what sad acts sit and watch that?

[Cowden til i die]

F1 is fucking pish.

[DA Baracus]

Son of Fergie, on 03 February 2012 - 14:37, said:

I can't help thinking that this years F1 season will be spoiled by the fact that Sky now has the rights to half the races. For those of us who don't have Sky TV it means we have to wait for the extended highlights on the beeb. okay, in some cases this might not be a bad thing, especially the middle east races, which can be a bit on the boring side. But my main concern is just how long will it be before Sky has the rights to all the races. They dominate just about every other sport, and it's not cheap to buy the whole sports package. The BBC could have given it to Channel 4, but they didn't want another terrestrial channel to have the contract. Unlike football, it's not too easy to nip down to the local pub and watch an entire race on their TV. It's definately a sport to be enjoyed in the home. Bernie Eccleston has worked wonders in F1, but he seems to have forgotten that the majority of viewers are not as rich as himself. He's let the side down. TV should be free. If we pay for a license then football, formula 1 or whatever your sport is should be free of charge. I understand that the revenue generated from TV rights will be invested into F1, but they could have acheived that by going to Channel 4 where us poor folk could still enjoy the early morning races. TYPICAL ... as the years roll on life just gets worse.

Somewhat of an over-reaction surely?


Sport is a business. Sky are paying the most or offering the best package. Sadly there's nothing anyone can do about it.

[StewartyMac]

Cammy35, on 03 February 2012 - 14:58, said:

There is a similar problem in football in that the SPL is now split between Sky and ESPN. That means to watch your team in the SPL including the Old \Firm games you need two subscriptions.

Or you could, you know, just fucking go to the games.

[lichtie23]

Cowden til i die, on 04 February 2012 - 15:00, said:

F1 is fucking pish.

It's got so fuckin boring

I stopped watching the year Coulthard moved over and let Hakkinen win in Australia. Seemed pointless if it wasn't a contest

[TartanArmani]

Sky Sports helped things like Darts, trying to make it more glam.

It has been the worst thing to ever happen to football though.

[StewartyMac]

You can just about plot the start of the relatively recent sharp decline of Scottish Football from the moment the Champions League and EPL came into being. Television started to dominate football then, and turned the casual supporter away from the turnstiles.

I was reading an old Albion yearbook the other night, and looking at the crowds in the 50's and 60s, all up around the 8-10000 mark, with games against the OF attracting in excess of 20,000. At that time, if you wanted to watch a game of football, you had to get out the house and actually attend the match. It was also affordable, and there was no internet forums for the spineless goons to be swayed away from the game. Other attractions were at a premium too.

It's 2012 now, I can watch football on the telly almost 365 days a year, there's a multitude of other things to do, and the football is fucking expensive. And brutal for the most part too.

The casual supporter in this country can now indulge all their Old Firm fantasies from the comfort of their own home. There's no need to nip along to watch the local team to get a fix of football, as it's all there for them in their front room.

Barcelona v Real Madrid in a warm hoose, or in the pub with pals, or Stirling Albion v Forfar for £14 in the freezing cauld in a stadium with hardly anyone there, and ropey as fúck football? Oor clubs don't stand a chance in this day and age.

[lichtie23]

So what's your answer then Stewarty?

Lower the admission prices? Cut the amount of Football on the telly?

[StewartyMac]

lichtie23, on 04 February 2012 - 18:58, said:

So what's your answer then Stewarty?

Lower the admission prices? Cut the amount of Football on the telly?

Cutting the amount of football on telly isnae happening, let's face it. And clubs will never take that leap of faith by lowering standard admission prices to attractive levels.

Basically, we're fucked. Football now is all about the 'big' teams and their marketable value. The wee teams are pishing against the wind.

[Diamonds are Forever]

StewartyMac, on 04 February 2012 - 19:12, said:

The wee teams are pishing against the wind.

The wee teams have no-one to blame but themselves. It's all too easy for diddy clubs to complain about Sky's domination and the Old Firm, but small clubs need to start living in the real world. Airdrie charge £15 to watch a terrible standard of football in an empty stadium and then the chairman complains that crowds are decreasing year by year. There will always be a market for local teams if they are priced correctly. Those who take the short term hit of drastically cutting the wage bill and cutting entrance fees will be fine. Those who continue to charge £15-£20 to watch SFL football will steadily decline losing fans year on year.

[StewartyMac]

Diamonds are Forever, on 05 February 2012 - 20:22, said:

Those who take the short term hit of drastically cutting the wage bill and cutting entrance fees will be fine.

You say that, but Albion cut the wage bill right down, and have still been forced to charge £14 for home games to just break even (which kinda shows how scary the accounts must have been pre-takeover). The alternative would be Shire-esque wages, but with the team likely to be bottom of Division 3, would people turn up to watch even bigger dross at a cheaper price?

I do agree that football is massively overpriced, but clubs are hamstrung with rising costs, player wages, and other expenses.

There's so much exposure to top class football these days, that our own product looks horrendous by comparison. The casual supporter simply won't turn up at lower league football during a season, other than the glory hunters who come out the woodwork for 'big games'.

[grazza]

There is no easy factor to increase attendances at games but there are possibly a few inter-related. High Price = high expection = let down = poor atmosphere = poor customer experience. There is standards of football in the world lower than what we see in Scotland that enjoy higher attendances so its not all about not having the top players but they treat fans better e.g. not assuming all fans are likely criminals and playing football in the best weather available. In terms of TV it might help if Scottish games do not go head to head with English matches, neutrals are not interested in seeing a one sided old firm victory in comparison to a reasonably competitive game.

This post has been edited by grazza: 05 February 2012 - 21:31

[StewartyMac]

grazza, on 05 February 2012 - 21:21, said:

There is standards of football in the world lower than what we see in Scotland that enjoy higher attendances

Yeah, but many of these places don't have top class football on the box all year round.

[MTJ]

StewartyMac, on 04 February 2012 - 19:12, said:

Cutting the amount of football on telly isnae happening, let's face it. And clubs will never take that leap of faith by lowering standard admission prices to attractive levels.

Basically, we're fucked. Football now is all about the 'big' teams and their marketable value. The wee teams are pishing against the wind.

I agree with this. Its at the point for me now I don't really watch much football on tv because its so predictable that the same big teams win everything.

[Diamonds are Forever]

StewartyMac, on 05 February 2012 - 20:44, said:

You say that, but Albion cut the wage bill right down, and have still been forced to charge £14 for home games to just break even (which kinda shows how scary the accounts must have been pre-takeover). The alternative would be Shire-esque wages, but with the team likely to be bottom of Division 3, would people turn up to watch even bigger dross at a cheaper price?

I do agree that football is massively overpriced, but clubs are hamstrung with rising costs, player wages, and other expenses.

There's so much exposure to top class football these days, that our own product looks horrendous by comparison. The casual supporter simply won't turn up at lower league football during a season, other than the glory hunters who come out the woodwork for 'big games'.

That is the main problem, no-one wants to blink first and be the first to drop wages hugely, but it's going to have to happen eventually. If everyone cut their wages and cut their prices then the leagues would still be just as competitive as the relative differences between clubs would still be the same. Of course, any good players would go elsewhere, but no matter what SFL clubs pay they are never going to be able to compete with TV games in terms of quality, so it has to look for other areas where it can bring back fans - competitiveness and pricing. Football on TV isn't going to decrease or go away, therefore I just think there's no point in clubs complaining about it, you either adapt to how it is, or you fold.

[grazza]

StewartyMac, on 05 February 2012 - 21:34, said:

Yeah, but many of these places don't have top class football on the box all year round.

Well i agree they have less access to it than we do perhaps but not hard to find a game somewhere if someone really wants to see it. The likes of Australia though football is competing with both codes of Rugby, Aussie Rules and Cricket. Here we get too obsessed with professional football and have too many full time pro clubs and probably too many semi pro clubs. I don't mean that in a way that clubs should cease to exist but look at places like the Netherlands and even some of the Nordic nations there have been some cracking players come out of amateur football. We have too many pro clubs spending resources on full time wages on guys who 1st division level is their peak. Some of these guys would stay and just play amateur and some would play abroad in a working holiday. Lets spend less money on these types of players, Sadly though we need broad agreement throughout Scottish football so no likely resolution soon.

[deky]

Son of Fergie, on 03 February 2012 - 14:37, said:

I can't help thinking that this years F1 season will be spoiled by the fact that Sky now has the rights to half the races. For those of us who don't have Sky TV it means we have to wait for the extended highlights on the beeb. okay, in some cases this might not be a bad thing, especially the middle east races, which can be a bit on the boring side. But my main concern is just how long will it be before Sky has the rights to all the races. They dominate just about every other sport, and it's not cheap to buy the whole sports package. The BBC could have given it to Channel 4, but they didn't want another terrestrial channel to have the contract. Unlike football, it's not too easy to nip down to the local pub and watch an entire race on their TV. It's definately a sport to be enjoyed in the home. Bernie Eccleston has worked wonders in F1, but he seems to have forgotten that the majority of viewers are not as rich as himself. He's let the side down. TV should be free. If we pay for a license then football, formula 1 or whatever your sport is should be free of charge. I understand that the revenue generated from TV rights will be invested into F1, but they could have acheived that by going to Channel 4 where us poor folk could still enjoy the early morning races. TYPICAL ... as the years roll on life just gets worse.

Not before time has the BBC given up on this so called sport.

It's nothing but a procession of dullness.

The BBC would be better trying to bid for NASCAR, now there's a real motorsport.

[IainMorton]

Son of Fergie, on 03 February 2012 - 14:37, said:

I can't help thinking that this years F1 season will be spoiled by the fact that Sky now has the rights to half the races.

Sky Sports will be showing all the races, with the BBC showing half the races