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The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread


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3 hours ago, muZZa__44 said:

This is positive news. I hadn't realised some of the stuff that had gone on until I was at the Vision night. It's good to see the trust building up between the club and the Ragazzi. It can only help the atmosphere imo. 👏 

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40 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

This is positive news. I hadn't realised some of the stuff that had gone on until I was at the Vision night. It's good to see the trust building up between the club and the Ragazzi. It can only help the atmosphere imo. 👏 

I was at the vision night and all I really remember was some chat about the flag that got pinched by the Rangers fans.  There was some comment about the club not paying to replace it (not really sure why they would).  Can’t really remember what else was said, apart from Mathie saying it was all before his time and he was happy to have a sit down to clear the air, but the offer at that point hadn’t been taken up.  What else was going on?

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3 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Like I say it's not a black and white issue either way for me. It's too easy to say clubs are losing revenue and not consider what they might lose by allowing it both short and long term. There are also costs to streaming, especially if you don't have qualified volunteers willing to do it free. Clubs of our size won't necessarily be able to to it profitably on a commercial basis if they are paying money's worth costs for the production.

Presumably given the experience over the last year clubs have enough data to make an estimate of the financial benefit (or loss)? And that should then be able to drive a decision about whether to continue with it - as you say, nobody is forcing a club to run a streaming service.

I found it very valuable for away games, and also any midweek fixtures which I can never attend (home or away) due to work commitments. I probably saw more games live last season than I have done for 20 years.

In any case, since the decision was made to install Pixellot the economic case is slightly different since the cost of running that isn't removed by stopping the streaming service. Clubs have generally chosen to run a service in addition to pixellot but to be honest I would be fine with pixellot if it saved the club money overall.

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1 hour ago, rgreig said:

Presumably given the experience over the last year clubs have enough data to make an estimate of the financial benefit (or loss)? And that should then be able to drive a decision about whether to continue with it - as you say, nobody is forcing a club to run a streaming service.

I found it very valuable for away games, and also any midweek fixtures which I can never attend (home or away) due to work commitments. I probably saw more games live last season than I have done for 20 years.

In any case, since the decision was made to install Pixellot the economic case is slightly different since the cost of running that isn't removed by stopping the streaming service. Clubs have generally chosen to run a service in addition to pixellot but to be honest I would be fine with pixellot if it saved the club money overall.

The costs of running Pixellot are not met by the clubs (unless they choose to use it). So, yes, no streaming = no costs.

If you have a club like say Alloa where Leo clearly does a full professional standard production as (afaik) a complete volunteer then the production costs are probably negligible to the club for a very good sellable product. Similarly with the assistance of Mr X and others we ran a product for 2 years that was very good for relative buttons. But those people aren't available to us now so if we wanted to stream games now we'd need to pay someone to do it or find alternative volunteers with the same skillset which wouldn't be easy I expect. To sell a handful of legal foreign streams and probably something fairly similar in VPN ones it's not worth the hassle to be honest. I've no idea where Ayr sit in the cost structure. They could just use Pixellot since you have it (as could we, they haven't removed it, it just doesn't stream games now as we're not in the Championship. If we wanted to pay to use it we could) but it's an expensive way to stream even leaving aside the quality issues. The club would be lucky to make buttons from it before you consider the potential indefinite costs.

I'm wholly unconvinced that enough data exists for any valid conclusions from last year. Certainly from us anyway. It was a relegation season and Covid was a factor to some extent for most of the season with crowds limited in the early part of it and suppressed by fans not comfortable with coming back into crowds yet. We also undoubtedly had people who in winter chose to sit in their house and stream the match rather than come out to it even if they just live along the road. I know my dad did that a couple of times and he's about 2 miles from the ground! It's nigh on impossible to know from the data which factors are affecting attendances most.

But yeah, my feeling is that clubs at our sort of level might potentially make a gain out of it if they can produce it cheaply enough. I suspect the ultimate "extra" profit from streaming might be so low that it's offset by reduced half time draw, catering and programme sales maybe though. I suspect any real gain to clubs is in PR and re-engaging with exiled fans rather than immediately financial. Equally, the real loss probably isn't in pounds at this time but in the long term move towards people being able to choose armchair entertainment over actually attending games. Anything that discourages physical attendance, particularly of away fans, is likely to be a bad thing in the long term for me. In the short term personally it would help me. I went for the best part of two decades never missing a game home or away but current family situation means I miss about half of our away games now. Being able to stream them for the last two seasons was a real bonus. I'll miss it. I flirted with trying a VPN for Montrose on Saturday since they did stream it but I couldn't be arsed mucking about with it and wouldn't know where to start in doing it. In 3 or 4 years I'll be back to attending every week so streaming won't make any personal odds to me probably.

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9 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

The costs of running Pixellot are not met by the clubs (unless they choose to use it). So, yes, no streaming = no costs.

If you have a club like say Alloa where Leo clearly does a full professional standard production as (afaik) a complete volunteer then the production costs are probably negligible to the club for a very good sellable product. Similarly with the assistance of Mr X and others we ran a product for 2 years that was very good for relative buttons. But those people aren't available to us now so if we wanted to stream games now we'd need to pay someone to do it or find alternative volunteers with the same skillset which wouldn't be easy I expect.

Interesting re. the costs of running Pixellot. How expensive is it if clubs do use it - you say it is expensive but how many streams would you need to sell to break even with it? I personally found the quality OK (the basics like frame rate and resolution were fine which Ayr really struggled with on their own offering) and it certainly removes the barrier you rightly highlight about finding suitably qualified people to run a more sophisticated service.

9 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I'm wholly unconvinced that enough data exists for any valid conclusions from last year.

Clearly extrapolating behaviour from observations during the pandemic has been shown to be difficult - see for example the VCs who pumped cash into food delivery startups ("reimagining salad leaf delivery") and now find that market dying. But I would challenge that we could not put together models for different scenarios particularly given that the last quarter of the season was definitely getting back to normal.

I am amazed that despite signing up to every single streaming service in the championship last season I have not had one single request from any of those services asking about my experience with it, how I would consider using it in future etc. As someone who builds digital services for banking for a living this is the most basic thing we do - make changes, observe behaviour and speak to users about their expectations and needs.

9 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Anything that discourages physical attendance, particularly of away fans, is likely to be a bad thing in the long term for me.

I would position it as an opportunity to attract a different set of fans particularly away fans. Some people might switch from in-person attendance but you also have the opportunity to attract some people who otherwise would never attend. I agree that research is required to assess how that would play out in the medium term - but in my view it is worth exploring unless the cost profile right now is prohibitive.

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1 hour ago, rgreig said:

Interesting re. the costs of running Pixellot. How expensive is it if clubs do use it - you say it is expensive but how many streams would you need to sell to break even with it? I personally found the quality OK (the basics like frame rate and resolution were fine which Ayr really struggled with on their own offering) and it certainly removes the barrier you rightly highlight about finding suitably qualified people to run a more sophisticated service.

I could probably delve back into information from 2 years ago if I had the time or motivation to do it but I don't have those figures to hand. In terms of running Pixellot for the external reasons it was installed in the first place (and remember it was going in before Covid was 'a thing" - it didn't come in for that reason) the costs are met by Pixellot or the SPFL. They installed their own fibre line to the ground, they paid for an operator to come 'guide' it in the early days when it had teething problems, they deal with all the upload costs, etc. From the club point of view it's just "there" and if they choose to pay Pixellot a licence fee they can use it for match analysis footage or as it turned out streaming. The quality wasn't great, though like you I'd still pay for it if there was no better alternative, I've watched it at some lower level grounds and it's ok - they seemed to iron out the following bald heads and most of the camera sweeping to wrong penalty area issues reasonably quickly. In terms of using it for streaming the big bonus for clubs who wanted to use it was there was no capital outlay. The equipment was there and there was no production cost at all unless they wanted to add a commentary. However, the licence fee was very high and was deducted directly from the streaming receipts (which were to be paid direct to the host) until covered so effectively clubs wouldn't see any cash at all until they'd sold a fair number of streams. Unless they've now dropped their licence fee levels I doubt we for instance would sell enough streams to overseas and fake overseas viewers to cover it so it would be pointless. A different debate to be had if you could sell domestically granted.

I do know that we were able to do the operation for a fraction of the price doing it ourselves with a few thousand pounds of equipment investment and a camera feed we were already filming games on anyway. We were lucky in jumping into bed with Dunfermline who already had an established streaming platform we were able to join which proved very reliable.

1 hour ago, rgreig said:

Clearly extrapolating behaviour from observations during the pandemic has been shown to be difficult - see for example the VCs who pumped cash into food delivery startups ("reimagining salad leaf delivery") and now find that market dying. But I would challenge that we could not put together models for different scenarios particularly given that the last quarter of the season was definitely getting back to normal.

I am amazed that despite signing up to every single streaming service in the championship last season I have not had one single request from any of those services asking about my experience with it, how I would consider using it in future etc. As someone who builds digital services for banking for a living this is the most basic thing we do - make changes, observe behaviour and speak to users about their expectations and needs.

I'm not really sure how 'normal' the back end of the season was. Our situation was obviously different with a more obvious relegation fight, a change of manager, etc but I wouldn't like to read much into data from last season and expect any reliability from it. I personally know people who wouldn't return all season due to Covid worries. We might have a higher age profile of fans perhaps? We also didn't do e-ticketing before this season so had very little data in practice about who was buying and where from. Ayr clearly would have a lot more of that having used e-ticketing even before Covid and it would be easier to compare trends.

The 2nd point I'd imagine relates to both the fact that much of this was put together quickly by football people with no concept of "developing" the system later and, more importantly, a knowledge by most, which we have in reality known since the first half of last season, that domestic streaming wouldn't be returning this season in any practical sense and therefore all the research in the world is pointless and a waste of time and, if you are paying for it, money. It's more likely the sort of thing either the SFA or SPFL should be conducting on a nationwide scale to see what the long term possibilities are?

1 hour ago, rgreig said:

I would position it as an opportunity to attract a different set of fans particularly away fans. Some people might switch from in-person attendance but you also have the opportunity to attract some people who otherwise would never attend. I agree that research is required to assess how that would play out in the medium term - but in my view it is worth exploring unless the cost profile right now is prohibitive.

But the fans you are attracting won't be sitting in the stadium. You can twist it how you like but as someone fortunate enough to sit in empty stadiums watching football during the pandemic early days, whether the short / medium term financial benefits exist or not (I think they do but on a negligible scale at our level), anything that causes less people to actually attend matches is a bad thing. Football is not just about 22 guys kicking a ball around a pitch, it's about the atmosphere, the tribal aspects, meeting your mates, talking about the game, having a pint before / after if that's your preference, home and away fans singing songs at each other all day. The product will be poorer if those aspects disappear. I like US sports and most of them play to sell out stadiums, but for my money they are poorer products for the fact that there is in general no culture of "away support" in the US. I'd hate our own sport to go that way.

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1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I could probably delve back into information from 2 years ago if I had the time or motivation to do it but I don't have those figures to hand. In terms of running Pixellot for the external reasons it was installed in the first place (and remember it was going in before Covid was 'a thing" - it didn't come in for that reason) the costs are met by Pixellot or the SPFL. They installed their own fibre line to the ground, they paid for an operator to come 'guide' it in the early days when it had teething problems, they deal with all the upload costs, etc. From the club point of view it's just "there" and if they choose to pay Pixellot a licence fee they can use it for match analysis footage or as it turned out streaming. The quality wasn't great, though like you I'd still pay for it if there was no better alternative, I've watched it at some lower level grounds and it's ok - they seemed to iron out the following bald heads and most of the camera sweeping to wrong penalty area issues reasonably quickly. In terms of using it for streaming the big bonus for clubs who wanted to use it was there was no capital outlay. The equipment was there and there was no production cost at all unless they wanted to add a commentary. However, the licence fee was very high and was deducted directly from the streaming receipts (which were to be paid direct to the host) until covered so effectively clubs wouldn't see any cash at all until they'd sold a fair number of streams. Unless they've now dropped their licence fee levels I doubt we for instance would sell enough streams to overseas and fake overseas viewers to cover it so it would be pointless. A different debate to be had if you could sell domestically granted.

I do know that we were able to do the operation for a fraction of the price doing it ourselves with a few thousand pounds of equipment investment and a camera feed we were already filming games on anyway. We were lucky in jumping into bed with Dunfermline who already had an established streaming platform we were able to join which proved very reliable.

I'm not really sure how 'normal' the back end of the season was. Our situation was obviously different with a more obvious relegation fight, a change of manager, etc but I wouldn't like to read much into data from last season and expect any reliability from it. I personally know people who wouldn't return all season due to Covid worries. We might have a higher age profile of fans perhaps? We also didn't do e-ticketing before this season so had very little data in practice about who was buying and where from. Ayr clearly would have a lot more of that having used e-ticketing even before Covid and it would be easier to compare trends.

The 2nd point I'd imagine relates to both the fact that much of this was put together quickly by football people with no concept of "developing" the system later and, more importantly, a knowledge by most, which we have in reality known since the first half of last season, that domestic streaming wouldn't be returning this season in any practical sense and therefore all the research in the world is pointless and a waste of time and, if you are paying for it, money. It's more likely the sort of thing either the SFA or SPFL should be conducting on a nationwide scale to see what the long term possibilities are?

But the fans you are attracting won't be sitting in the stadium. You can twist it how you like but as someone fortunate enough to sit in empty stadiums watching football during the pandemic early days, whether the short / medium term financial benefits exist or not (I think they do but on a negligible scale at our level), anything that causes less people to actually attend matches is a bad thing. Football is not just about 22 guys kicking a ball around a pitch, it's about the atmosphere, the tribal aspects, meeting your mates, talking about the game, having a pint before / after if that's your preference, home and away fans singing songs at each other all day. The product will be poorer if those aspects disappear. I like US sports and most of them play to sell out stadiums, but for my money they are poorer products for the fact that there is in general no culture of "away support" in the US. I'd hate our own sport to go that way.

As pro steaming as I am from the same experience this part I totally agree with, what a grim spectacle it all was.  

Edited by itzdrk
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6 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

You share it with Ally Graham, do you also become shorter when you jump? 

????   Big Ally Graham was seriously powerful in the air.  Can’t think of anyone over the last 40 years who was better.  He was maybe a bit limited when it came to kicking the ball, but still, you can’t have everything.

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Big Graham was excellent in the air. Second only to Dixie Ingram of Ayr players I've seen. He did on occasion also score good goals with his feet. One in particular against Forfar, a shot from the left corner of the box, right across the goalie into his top left corner. One of the best goals I've witnessed at Somerset. It was one of those, that if he'd tried it 100 times, he'd have scored once.

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