General : ESPN, BT, Euro, Premier and Sky Sports news

[Mad Max]

The reason Sky & BT, imo, pay so much for the rights to football, whether it's the EPL or CL, is down to the fact that players are paid obscene amounts of money, if the clubs didn't get the income from the TV companies via the football associations, then they would only be able to offer players a reasonable salary to play football, it's ridiculous that some of them are on £150k per week plus! Reducing the amount paid to players would have the effect of the TV companies having to pay a reasonable amount to show these games live, this would have the knock on effect of reducing bills to people who want to pay to watch live football.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

The reason Sky & BT, imo, pay so much for the rights to football, whether it's the EPL or CL, is down to the fact that players are paid obscene amounts of money, if the clubs didn't get the income from the TV companies via the football associations, then they would only be able to offer players a reasonable salary to play football, it's ridiculous that some of them are on £150k per week plus! Reducing the amount paid to players would have the effect of the TV companies having to pay a reasonable amount to show these games live, this would have the knock on effect of reducing bills to people who want to pay to watch live football.

I agree that the salaries are ridiculous but feel you have cause and effect the wrong way round. Murdoch called sports rights the battering ram to open people's doors to signing up for pay TV services. Sports rights; in particular the Premier League; are vital to a successful pay TV business which is why Sky and BT have paid so much. This money has flooded into the Premier League helping it buy some of the best players in the world and pay them handsomely and some!

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

The reason Sky & BT, imo, pay so much for the rights to football, whether it's the EPL or CL, is down to the fact that players are paid obscene amounts of money, if the clubs didn't get the income from the TV companies via the football associations, then they would only be able to offer players a reasonable salary to play football, it's ridiculous that some of them are on £150k per week plus! Reducing the amount paid to players would have the effect of the TV companies having to pay a reasonable amount to show these games live, this would have the knock on effect of reducing bills to people who want to pay to watch live football.

Sadly you have hit the nail on the head but sadly again Max l cannot see anything changing anytime soon.

[MaverickJesus]

I don't think that's true at all, TV companies will pay whatever they think is sensible value for the rights regardless of how much players get paid. Capping wages would however make Premiership football less attractive for the top end players, making it boring to watch and thus lowering the value to the TV companies, which would drive the end user cost down. But who wants that?

[andy_m]

Originally Posted by MaverickJesus

I don't think that's true at all, TV companies will pay whatever they think is sensible value for the rights regardless of how much players get paid. Capping wages would however make Premiership football less attractive for the top end players, making it boring to watch and thus lowering the value to the TV companies, which would drive the end user cost down. But who wants that?

Wages are lower in Germany (albeit not capped) but it's a pretty decent product even though on the basis of money it's less attractive than the Premier League for the top end players.

[thenry]

Campbell Mithun ‏@cmithun
Just saw the future of watching sports on TV - whole pitch/field, the whole time. Felt like I was there. #CES2014

1:32 AM - 8 Jan 14
https://twitter.com/cmithun/status/420729808142626816

[harry_hitch]

Originally Posted by andy_m

Wages are lower in Germany (albeit not capped) but it's a pretty decent product even though on the basis of money it's less attractive than the Premier League for the top end players.

German players and fans appear (rightly) to root for the national team though. The players clearly get paid enough to make a decent living.
Why should the German FA care if they cannot attract the likes Clint Dempsey, when clubs can probably pick players of a similar standard of quality for a fraction of the wages and who want to work hard and try to earn a call up for their country. They must be very happy with their tournament placings, and how promising their future currently looks.
England have always been average even before the PL started, but the PL is really limiting our future growth. The FA don't help help matters much either, the Germans will happily let their under 21's play in the under 21 tournaments and learn to play internationally naturally, where as we just chuck teenagers into a team of players (who do not know how to win important games) against seasoned international players in the hope they show some promise for the future.
The FA really need to try and gain some form of control over the PL, (or at least let the youngsters develop at under 21 level) even if it will be incredibly difficult.

Rant over.

[Doug P]

Could tech peeps tell me why that whole pitch thing is good?

It seems to me that you can see the whole pitch but nothing in any detail.

If that is so would rather stick with the pics we currently get.

[andy_m]

Originally Posted by harry_hitch

German players and fans appear (rightly) to root for the national team though. The players clearly get paid enough to make a decent living.
Why should the German FA care if they cannot attract the likes Clint Dempsey, when clubs can probably pick players of a similar standard of quality for a fraction of the wages and who want to work hard and try to earn a call up for their country. They must be very happy with their tournament placings, and how promising their future currently looks.
England have always been average even before the PL started, but the PL is really limiting our future growth. The FA don't help help matters much either, the Germans will happily let their under 21's play in the under 21 tournaments and learn to play internationally naturally, where as we just chuck teenagers into a team of players (who do not know how to win important games) against seasoned international players in the hope they show some promise for the future.
The FA really need to try and gain some form of control over the PL, (or at least let the youngsters develop at under 21 level) even if it will be incredibly difficult.

Rant over.

Wholeheartedly agree. I was countering the suggestion that lower wages means boring football which nobody wants. Germany shows that doesn't need to be the case. The two Champions League semi finals last year showed that it is German teams, not Spanish, who are playing the best football, and the final showed that it's also German teams who are winning trophies. Yet their top earners are on two thirds of the money earned by ours. At the same time their fans can watch top flight football (with a free travel card to get there) for about a tenner and even drink beer in sight of the pitch.

The Premier League has been good solely for the Premier League, everything else - and to stay on topic, that includes people who want to watch football on tv - has suffered.

---------- Post added at 08:16 ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 ----------

Originally Posted by Doug P

Could tech peeps tell me why that whole pitch thing is good?

It seems to me that you can see the whole pitch but nothing in any detail.

If that is so would rather stick with the pics we currently get.

That was my first thought.

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by harry_hitch

German players and fans appear (rightly) to root for the national team though. The players clearly get paid enough to make a decent living.
Why should the German FA care if they cannot attract the likes Clint Dempsey, when clubs can probably pick players of a similar standard of quality for a fraction of the wages and who want to work hard and try to earn a call up for their country. They must be very happy with their tournament placings, and how promising their future currently looks.
England have always been average even before the PL started, but the PL is really limiting our future growth. The FA don't help help matters much either, the Germans will happily let their under 21's play in the under 21 tournaments and learn to play internationally naturally, where as we just chuck teenagers into a team of players (who do not know how to win important games) against seasoned international players in the hope they show some promise for the future.
The FA really need to try and gain some form of control over the PL, (or at least let the youngsters develop at under 21 level) even if it will be incredibly difficult.

Rant over.

Could not agree more the FA have overseen this mess. They are supposed to be the controlling body of football in this Country ,it seems to me the Premier League say jump and they do. The FA needs to assert its authority.

[Superblade7]

The German revolution all started when Jurgen Klinsmann took charge of the national side in 2004. He worked with the German FA to ensure that all the clubs from the national team down to grass roots all played and coached in a similar style so that players would easily slip into club or national team. It's paid off big style with the success of both the German national team and club teams in the last few years.

You also look around the top European Leagues and the top teams are filled with great players from that country. The top Premier League teams are filled with many foreign players which, whilst is great to see them play in this country, only continues to hurt the English national team.

Unfortunately with the Premier League pretty much it's own entity and ruling the roost, nothing much will change whilst the cash keeps rolling in. At some stage, the FA need to grow some balls as alwaysabear has pointed out otherwise the English national team will (unfortunately) probably never see any success.

Being somewhat biased as you'll see from my avatar, I'd also like to see a lot more Football League games on TV. Whilst there is not always the glitz and glamour of the Premier League or Champions League, there are some excellent games in the Football League. Maybe Sky could look at this to fill the hole they'll have without the Champions League.

[andy_m]

It's recent enough for you to remember that the Premier League isn't really that glitzy or glamorous once you're there! Fully agree that there are some good, and more importantly competitive, matches in the Football League - but don't wish for it to be covered more comprehensively on tv. I'm looking forward to next season so I can go back to having 90% 3pm Saturday kick offs!

[Media Boy UK]

BT Sport greenlights WRC

Broadcastnow is reporting that Live TV coverage of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) is to return after rights holders struck a deal with BT Sport.

[1andrew1]

BT Sport has signed a deal to show exclusively live coverage of the 26 stages of the FIA World Rally Championships (WRC), starting with the opening event of the 2014 season, the famous Rallye Monte Carlo, on Wednesday January 15.
The BT Sport WRC programming will run across BT Sport’s three channels, BT Sport 1 and 2, and ESPN. Coverage will include a preview and a review show for each rally and a daily highlights show.

http://sport.bt.com/moresporthub/mor...11363865891893

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Market capitalisation - the value of a company (No. of shares x price per share converted into £ where appropriate)
21st Century Fox £45.45bn
BT £30.14bn
Liberty Global £21.48bn
BSkyB £13.19bn
TalkTalk £2.80bn

Wonder whether we'll see a wholesale deal between Sky Sports and BT Sport , people in the city seem to be suggesting its a possibility.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...s-vodafone-fox