Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[parsforlife]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

. Your vision of a local hosting some fans far away games is music to those owners, and there would certainly be a few willing to pony up a tidy sum...if they are hosting 24 fans, surely £25-50 a game would be reasonable...pennies indeed, but still revenue. The honest answer for TV revenue is sharing, but the OF won’t allow it to happen.

 

So the pub pays the club £50 so they can get 24 people in watching the game.  But unless all of those people would not have attended the match the club will likely lose money.  If only 3 choose to watch in the pub when they would have gone they have lost money.  If all 24 would have otherwise gone to the game they would have lost hundreds of pounds. 

When you look at how big of an impact bbc games have on crowds you can definitely see why clubs would be very wary of fans choosing streaming over attending the game.  Unless we can find a way of making sure streaming only is used by fans who otherwise wouldn’t watch the game then it’s a big risk.     I wouldn’t mind allowing season ticket holders access to a stream for games they couldn’t attend,  but you would need to be very careful that you don’t just end up with pubs just buying a season ticket and streaming games,  or me attending the game with my season ticket and someone else using the stream.  Or what would be 10 folk paying £20 each at the ground now just paying 1 fee to watch a stream in someone’s living room.

 

 

 

 

 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, parsforlife said:

So the pub pays the club £50 so they can get 24 people in watching the game.  But unless all of those people would not have attended the match the club will likely lose money.  If only 3 choose to watch in the pub when they would have gone they have lost money.  If all 24 would have otherwise gone to the game they would have lost hundreds of pounds. 

When you look at how big of an impact bbc games have on crowds you can definitely see why clubs would be very wary of fans choosing streaming over attending the game.  Unless we can find a way of making sure streaming only is used by fans who otherwise wouldn’t watch the game then it’s a big risk.     I wouldn’t mind allowing season ticket holders access to a stream for games they couldn’t attend,  but you would need to be very careful that you don’t just end up with pubs just buying a season ticket and streaming games,  or me attending the game with my season ticket and someone else using the stream.  Or what would be 10 folk paying £20 each at the ground now just paying 1 fee to watch a stream in someone’s living room.

Everything’s a gamble, and the correct question is what are fitba attendance numbers doing?  Donkey-ass-ter trumpeted attendance numbers up over the past four years after the 2018-2019 season, without noting how Sevco’s replacement of smaller drawing clubs in the Championship and the Premiership made that a given. For the 2018-2019 season, an increase in 25 of 42 clubs attendance and a net of 41,000 more fans over 2017-2018 sounds impressive until you realize that was actually an extra 52 a game, on average.

In 2019-2020, corrected for the shortened season, all but one League saw a decline in attendance (League One had a huge jump, which is attributable to Falkirk). Overall, fitba has seen a slow decline in attendance, which isn’t helped by steadily climbing ticket prices. In the situation above, allowing pubs to show away games, but not home, might be a good place to start. Perhaps with season ticket cards, allow holders to stream games, IF they register beforehand for that game streaming and the ticket card isn’t presented for admission. There’s lots of things that advances in technology allow, and I know some games have been effectively live-streamed from phones for no club revenue, why not try to tap into these possibilities?

[parsforlife]

There are possibilities. As small gambles will need to be made, however typically Scottish lower league football is very risk adverse where it can be(probably due to the uncontrollable risks being quite high vs most industries) so you can’t expect sides to suddenly jump into the unknown when their bread and butter revenue stream is at risk.  
 

We are also piss poor at embracing technology, attending away games is one of the only times in my day to day life where I need to make a deliberate effort to have a cash on me.  I can do just about everything with card and whilst that’s possible at some grounds by going into the ticket office but a contactless entry system is quite easy to achieve from a tech point of view and yet nobody has implemented such a system.  

My brother in law came(who isn’t really a football fan) to a game a few years ago and didn’t have cash on him which is quite common for u30s, obviously we payed his entry but it’s clear the entire match day experience only really makes sense to those of us who have been part of it our whole lives.  We are absolutely not open to those that have only seen football on tv before and want to see what it’s like in the ground.  Innovation is welcome , but it can’t come at the cost of risking the traditional income that clubs desperately need.

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, parsforlife said:

There are possibilities. As small gambles will need to be made, however typically Scottish lower league football is very risk adverse where it can be(probably due to the uncontrollable risks being quite high vs most industries) so you can’t expect sides to suddenly jump into the unknown when their bread and butter revenue stream is at risk.  
 

We are also piss poor at embracing technology, attending away games is one of the only times in my day to day life where I need to make a deliberate effort to have a cash on me.  I can do just about everything with card and whilst that’s possible at some grounds by going into the ticket office but a contactless entry system is quite easy to achieve from a tech point of view and yet nobody has implemented such a system.  

My brother in law came(who isn’t really a football fan) to a game a few years ago and didn’t have cash on him which is quite common for u30s, obviously we payed his entry but it’s clear the entire match day experience only really makes sense to those of us who have been part of it our whole lives.  We are absolutely not open to those that have only seen football on tv before and want to see what it’s like in the ground.  Innovation is welcome , but it can’t come at the cost of risking the traditional income that clubs desperately need.

100%, and this is the event that must MAKE fitba embrace technology. Most teams are moving from coupon books to season ticket cards, which means a scanner at all the gates. Few clubs take cash at the gates, most opting for buying a ticket at the Office to present at the gate, and scanning those would make sense too. So if you now have scanners at all the entries, they are likely small units remotely connected to a main computer, which can also probably handle contactless or card payments at the food and drink stalls.

The problem, as always, is money...but this would reduce sanitation/disinfecting issues, improve transaction times, reduce staff workload, etc. Perhaps a technology sponsor for fitba is the solution, with their contribution being reduced cost (or free) services and equipment...after all, Pixellot is not costing the teams because they have an ulterior motive (betting). The SG could offer tax advantages to migrating to such systems too.

[craigkillie]

5 hours ago, TxRover said:

In 2019-2020, corrected for the shortened season, all but one League saw a decline in attendance (League One had a huge jump, which is attributable to Falkirk).

This is hardly a surprise given that some of the best attended games come right at the end of the season when teams are in title races, relegation battles and so on. Those matches didn't take place.

[Sergeant Wilson]

11 hours ago, TxRover said:

 Donkey-ass-ter 

Please stop, for this alone, without even going in to the rest of the detail.

[stevoraith]

The games should be accessible to all so domestic streaming should be permanent now imo. If clubs can afford if of course. 
 
There’s fans of all clubs all over the UK who obviously can’t attend games so why not have a service where they can watch their team every week?

That’s fine for fans like you and me who already have an affiliation to a team.

We’re in this forum because we support a wee team, and as such we more than likely support them because they are our local team, our dads/grandads dragged us along when we were young, we went with our mates or any combination of the above.

Where is the incentive for a 6/7 year old to start following Dumbarton if he/she is not being taken to the games?
Watching a Premier league or La liga game would surely be much more appealing to a fan who has not yet developed an affiliation to a shitey wee Scottish team?

We must not make it easier for people who are able to attend games to see them without attending in person or we’ll lose the next generation of fans and strangle the smaller clubs over the next 30-40 years.

And I say this as someone who would love to be able to watch Raith on a Saturday afternoon on my phone as work and family life make it very difficult to attend games even though I live just a few miles from San Starko.

[Homer Thompson]

2 hours ago, stevoraith said:

 

That’s fine for fans like you and me who already have an affiliation to a team.

We’re in this forum because we support a wee team, and as such we more than likely support them because they are our local team, our dads/grandads dragged us along when we were young, we went with our mates or any combination of the above.

Where is the incentive for a 6/7 year old to start following Dumbarton if he/she is not being taken to the games?
Watching a Premier league or La liga game would surely be much more appealing to a fan who has not yet developed an affiliation to a shitey wee Scottish team?

We must not make it easier for people who are able to attend games to see them without attending in person or we’ll lose the next generation of fans and strangle the smaller clubs over the next 30-40 years.

And I say this as someone who would love to be able to watch Raith on a Saturday afternoon on my phone as work and family life make it very difficult to attend games even though I live just a few miles from San Starko.

 

Im not sure theres going to be a huge demand for streaming from the casual fan, particularly ones who have never attended a game.

Of course, you could flip your argument and have a 6/7 year old who happens to see a Dumbarton stream and becomes interested enough that they want to be taken to a live game.

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, stevoraith said:

Where is the incentive for a 6/7 year old to start following Dumbarton if he/she is not being taken to the games?
Watching a Premier league or La liga game would surely be much more appealing to a fan who has not yet developed an affiliation to a shitey wee Scottish team?

We must not make it easier for people who are able to attend games to see them without attending in person or we’ll lose the next generation of fans and strangle the smaller clubs over the next 30-40 years.

And I say this as someone who would love to be able to watch Raith on a Saturday afternoon on my phone as work and family life make it very difficult to attend games even though I live just a few miles from San Starko.

 

The nutshell of the problem there is that it IS easy for the nipper to watch on TV, and the games on TV aren’t our games. To mix metaphors, genie is out of the bottle and only hope remains in the box...

[craigkillie]

The nutshell of the problem there is that it IS easy for the nipper to watch on TV, and the games on TV aren’t our games. To mix metaphors, genie is out of the bottle and only hope remains in the box...[emoji12]

It is not easy to watch 3pm games on the TV in this country, because none of them are broadcast. You can certainly see them, but you have to jump through hoops to do so and the illegal streams are always prone to being pulled at short notice.

[stevoraith]

Im not sure theres going to be a huge demand for streaming from the casual fan, particularly ones who have never attended a game.
Of course, you could flip your argument and have a 6/7 year old who happens to see a Dumbarton stream and becomes interested enough that they want to be taken to a live game.

Agreed, it won’t be the casual fan who wants to watch, it’ll be the fan who currently attends.
So the clubs will lose out.

And the second part- well yeah, possible but the chances of choosing to watch a Scottish lower league game (which you don’t already have a connection to) ahead of something more glamorous are slim [emoji23]

Maybe I’m just a backwards thinking dinosaur but I can’t see a world in which allowing games to be streamed live so that people could chose to watch rather than attend is ever going to be good for clubs.

[Homer Thompson]

2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

It is not easy to watch 3pm games on the TV in this country, because none of them are broadcast. You can certainly see them, but you have to jump through hoops to do so and the illegal streams are always prone to being pulled at short notice.

Im not sure that matters, in this context. A young kid is far more likely to grow up supporting Chelsea, Liverpool etc or the OF because they can watch them on tv. The fact that the game might be Saturday lunch or tea time or a Sunday isnt at all relevant.

1 hour ago, stevoraith said:

Agreed, it won’t be the casual fan who wants to watch, it’ll be the fan who currently attends.
So the clubs will lose out.

And the second part- well yeah, possible but the chances of choosing to watch a Scottish lower league game (which you don’t already have a connection to) ahead of something more glamorous are slim

Maybe I’m just a backwards thinking dinosaur but I can’t see a world in which allowing games to be streamed live so that people could chose to watch rather than attend is ever going to be good for clubs

I think thats the key question. Personally, I dont think many "hard core" fans are going to chose to watch a stream rather than attend the game. There will definitely be those, less regular fans, particularly from further afield who might chose to watch a stream rather than go but in my opinion they are also the fans who would chose not to go because of the weather, cost, a pending night out or any number of other reasons. The fact that they could spend less money and watch a stream instead might actually benefit the clubs. Theres also, then, the more distant fan who cant attend games who, again, could spend money with the club they cant already.

Of course, you then have the floating fans. Are they more likely to watch a stream than go to a game? Honestly, I dont know. You would have thought if they only had a casual interest they'd be unlikely to bother watching a stream, but as was pointed out earlier, if a mates paid for it, or the local pub then they might well decide not to attend.

You implied that the 6/7 year old wouldnt be taken to games because they would be able to watch a stream instead. If they're watching the stream that might generate interest to go along. The question of watching Dumbarton over the EPL is a totally different one.

I think I've given some scenarios where streaming could be of benefit to the club. You're absolutely right, though, if fans were to turn their back on attending games in favour of watching a stream its not going to be good for anyone.

[craigkillie]

6 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Im not sure that matters, in this context. A young kid is far more likely to grow up supporting Chelsea, Liverpool etc or the OF because they can watch them on tv. The fact that the game might be Saturday lunch or tea time or a Sunday isnt at all relevant.

The point is surely that even if they grow up choosing those clubs, they can't currently see them during the 3pm kick-offs, and therefore they may get themselves along to a local game during that time period instead. But if Liverpool are on TV at 3pm then that incentive to go along to watch Raith or Morton or whoever is gone.

[Homer Thompson]

18 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

The point is surely that even if they grow up choosing those clubs, they can't currently see them during the 3pm kick-offs, and therefore they may get themselves along to a local game during that time period instead. But if Liverpool are on TV at 3pm then that incentive to go along to watch Raith or Morton or whoever is gone.

Maybe. Im not convinced that 3pm kick offs on TV would make a massive difference, in this context. If they're of a mind to go to a local game there would be plenty of opportunities when their "big club" are not playing at 3pm. If they're not of a mind to go then adding a 3pm kick off to the already saturated TV isnt going to make much difference

[Ludo*1]

Premiership footballers continuing to act like utter morons may see us not see football for quite some time at this rate. FFS.

[vikingTON]

[stevoraith]

You implied that the 6/7 year old wouldnt be taken to games because they would be able to watch a stream instead. If they're watching the stream that might generate interest to go along. The question of watching Dumbarton over the EPL is a totally different one.

You mis-understood I think, my point was that they wouldn’t begin to support a Scottish lower league team because they’d choose to watch something more glamorous at 3pm on a Saturday and never build an affiliation to their local team.

I agree with a lot of your points though, I’d pay to stream a game that I can’t attend due to work or family commitments so the club would earn more from people in my position, and yes, the core support won’t chose to stream rather than attend.

But that’s because we all know how good it feels to attend a game..... which brings me neatly back to my main point, a lot of impressionable youngsters won’t get that first hit that hooks them and keeps them following lower league toilet football, instead they’ll be lost to being armchair Man City or Real Madrid fans.

[Black and White Tragic]

You mis-understood I think, my point was that they wouldn’t begin to support a Scottish lower league team because they’d choose to watch something more glamorous at 3pm on a Saturday and never build an affiliation to their local team.

I agree with a lot of your points though, I’d pay to stream a game that I can’t attend due to work or family commitments so the club would earn more from people in my position, and yes, the core support won’t chose to stream rather than attend.

But that’s because we all know how good it feels to attend a game..... which brings me neatly back to my main point, a lot of impressionable youngsters won’t get that first hit that hooks them and keeps them following lower league toilet football, instead they’ll be lost to being armchair Man City or Real Madrid fans.

“That first hit that hooks them and keeps them”. Spoken like a former drug baron on pushing smack? Lots of parallels to draw there though [emoji6]

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, stevoraith said:

You mis-understood I think, my point was that they wouldn’t begin to support a Scottish lower league team because they’d choose to watch something more glamorous at 3pm on a Saturday and never build an affiliation to their local team.

I agree with a lot of your points though, I’d pay to stream a game that I can’t attend due to work or family commitments so the club would earn more from people in my position, and yes, the core support won’t chose to stream rather than attend.

But that’s because we all know how good it feels to attend a game..... which brings me neatly back to my main point, a lot of impressionable youngsters won’t get that first hit that hooks them and keeps them following lower league toilet football, instead they’ll be lost to being armchair Man City or Real Madrid fans.

 

The cynical reality is that dad dragging them TO a game is the likely hook, as attending is worlds different than watching...mostly better and sometimes worse. Not sure the streaming would kill that as much as you think, but it’s a valid concern. More worrisome is the vast amount of high quality football available, but it isn’t impossible to have a fan of a “big club” who also follows his local minnow.

1 hour ago, Black and White Tragic said:

“That first hit that hooks them and keeps them”. Spoken like a former drug baron on pushing smack? Lots of parallels to draw there though

 

Does beg the question of what drug is fitba most like? It would have to involve deep despair, high costs, difficulty procuring and the occasional ecstatic high.

6 hours ago, craigkillie said:

It is not easy to watch 3pm games on the TV in this country, because none of them are broadcast. You can certainly see them, but you have to jump through hoops to do so and the illegal streams are always prone to being pulled at short notice.

 Fair point, but I wasn’t referring to that specific time. It is, however, pretty darn simple with a VPN and a club that streams already for their home games. If I was in Fife last year and wanted to watch the Falkirk TV stream of the game against Raith (sound off, for sure), I highly doubt FTV would give a rats ass as long as I paid the requested sum to view it. Since it’s income, I just don’t see any party with any enthusiasm or willingness to persecute such activity. Given that standard, are we really going on a bridge too far by expanding a bit?

2 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

Premiership footballers continuing to act like utter morons may see us not see football for quite some time at this rate. FFS.

Perhaps Celtic couldn’t stand to be seen to have the other “top” teams doing things they didn’t? Or they figure they’ll be top of the table in a few weeks and bag number ten with another shutdown, plus bleeding their competitors dry during another shutdown. Now, if Sevco start breaking rules, while three teams are above Celtic...

[stevoraith]

“That first hit that hooks them and keeps them”. Spoken like a former drug baron on pushing smack? Lots of parallels to draw there though [emoji6]

We all know lower league Scottish football is the sensible mans heroin. [emoji12]