[jfman]

Quite entertained at reading the analysis on another forum where people are absolutely perplexed at the near-zero value of these rights. Considering the amount of time they spend debating football commentators I'd like to that at least a couple of them would have worked it out.

There's 380 games out there of varying value. The highest value, rather obviously, being the biggest games between the biggest teams. This is on a sliding scale for broadcasters - hence those packages with 'first picks' sell for more than those with 'second picks' and so forth. There is however the quota system - this does mean that the best game of a weekend could in theory at least come out as a 'second pick' etc. It also means that an attractive game could, be turned down by both broadcasters albeit it's unlikely.

To the casual supporter Sky were the only place you could watch more than one game per week. Now BT get a couple of games per week in the new setup, which is undesirable for Sky. There's now free to air games and games Amazon are making available, again satisfying the interest of the passive viewer.

The reality is that introducing the 201st-380th ranking games have extremely low value and serve only to dilute the offering of Sky/BT who are paying top dollar for their share. Selling all 380 games would be unlikely to get significantly greater revenue than the present offering (or else, they're capitalists - they'd have done it by now!).

Leagues where every game is broadcast tend towards a 1st pick/2nd pick/rest model or have an exclusive broadcaster.