General : ESPN may lose EPL Football(Update)

[colin25]

Originally Posted by Chad

Boy it's going to get real expensive if you are a die hard football fan. If you are a fan of the English Premiership, SPL, European football etc... you'll need SKY Sports, ESPN and the new BT channel. That's not to mention Premier Sports if that ever launches on Virgin.

It's actually going to be cheaper to buy a season ticket for the majority of Scottish and Enlgish clubs than what it will be to watch football on TV. A season ticket for my local club, Falkirk, is only £225.00. You can get a season ticket for most English Championship clubs from between £350.00 to £550.00

Maybe people should start thinking about going back to football and putting their money back into their local clubs, and enjoying a day out at the game, rather than lining the pockets of SKY, ESPN and BT.

I can't see that happening.

I suspect most will dump ESPN, unless they like the other offerings.
BT may get a foothold, but depends on price..remembering that it is just EPL at moment, so no way would i pay same as i pay for ESPN now.

To be honest, I might just stick with sky sports. ESPN if they drop their price, and might not go for BT.

But who knows, it will be interesting to see what is on offer.

I might even get to go to bed early some nights

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chad

Boy it's going to get real expensive if you are a die hard football fan. If you are a fan of the English Premiership, SPL, European football etc... you'll need SKY Sports, ESPN and the new BT channel. That's not to mention Premier Sports if that ever launches on Virgin.

It's actually going to be cheaper to buy a season ticket for the majority of Scottish and Enlgish clubs than what it will be to watch football on TV. A season ticket for my local club, Falkirk, is only £225.00. You can get a season ticket for most English Championship clubs from between £350.00 to £550.00

Maybe people should start thinking about going back to football and putting their money back into their local clubs, and enjoying a day out at the game, rather than lining the pockets of SKY, ESPN and BT.

Thats all very well Chad buts lets say you pay £20 a ticket for each match then you are still looking at £100 a month then theres food/drink and transport costs which will push the costs up considerably and then put that against the combined costs of Sky/ESPN and BT then its still much cheaper to watch sport at home in the comfort of your own home.

Originally Posted by denphone

Thats all very well Chad buts lets say you pay £20 a ticket for each match then you are still looking at £100 a month then theres food/drink and transport costs which will push the costs up considerably and then put that against the combined costs of Sky/ESPN and BT then its still much cheaper to watch sport at home in the comfort of your own home.

I'm sorry but it's currently cheaper for my husband to go down the pub than for us to pay for all the footy.

[thenry]

spare a moment for us Arsenal fans will you in your discussions. we pay premiums left right and center! £20 would get you a picture OUTSIDE the stadium

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I'm sorry but it's currently cheaper for my husband to go down the pub than for us to pay for all the footy.

Thats great Maggy for your husband if theres a pub nearby but where we live there is no decent pub for miles around plus even if there was do l want really to listen to the loud boorishness and bad language of some of these groups of people who frequent in some of these pubs.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by colin25

My point is..I have never heard of anyone saying...wow..I got sky because of all the channels. That may have happened when sky first came out..but mainly because extra channels was rare.

Customers choose now because of other selling points..quantity of channel isn't it..usually it is quality of choice...I have a selection of channels I view..the rest just sit there waiting

Sky having channels that VM don't, both SD and HD, is the ONLY thing that would tempt me to move to Sky.

I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that the lack of SD and HD channels on VM, that Sky had, was the reason that MM moved to Sky? I'm sure he will correct me if I am wrong

[Chad]

Originally Posted by denphone

Thats all very well Chad buts lets say you pay £20 a ticket for each match then you are still looking at £100 a month then theres food/drink and transport costs which will push the costs up considerably and then put that against the combined costs of Sky/ESPN and BT then its still much cheaper to watch sport at home in the comfort of your own home.

I suppose it all comes down to how much your local club charges for their season ticket, and how far away their ground is.

I can watch my local junior team Bo'ness United for free if I jump the wall. I can even drink a few cans of beer at the game if I'm careful

To be honest i think once ESPN lose the EPL,VM may try to do a wholesale deal with BT just as they have with ESPN// Setanta before them,as i could not see it being worthwhile offering the matches to VM customers otherwise as they would get very few takers on a seperate subscription basis.

I fear Sky sports will go up which is kind of a blow as i only want the cricket mostly.

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by richard1960

To be honest i think once ESPN lose the EPL,VM may try to do a wholesale deal with BT just as they have with ESPN// Setanta before them,as i could not see it being worthwhile offering the matches to VM customers otherwise as they would get very few takers on a seperate subscription basis.

I fear Sky sports will go up which is kind of a blow as i only want the cricket mostly.

thats guarenteed when the september price rise comes on sky

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by passingbat

I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that the lack of SD and HD channels on VM, that Sky had, was the reason that MM moved to Sky? I'm sure he will correct me if I am wrong

Along with mobile apps , cheaper price for me and I have always preferred the Sky+ software if I'm honest.

Originally Posted by richard1960

To be honest i think once ESPN lose the EPL,VM may try to do a wholesale deal with BT just as they have with ESPN// Setanta before them,as i could not see it being worthwhile offering the matches to VM customers otherwise as they would get very few takers on a seperate subscription basis.

I can't see a similar deal coming off Richard I believe BT will want to make the channel most attractive on its own platform but I guess it's all speculation and time will tell.

Originally Posted by richard1960

I fear Sky sports will go up which is kind of a blow as i only want the cricket mostly.

I fear you could be right

[Chad]

Originally Posted by richard1960

I fear Sky sports will go up which is kind of a blow as i only want the cricket mostly.

Yeah I know exactly how you feel. In terms of football I only really watch when Scotland and Rangers are playing. I might not be seeing much of Rangers on TV for a while

Other than Rangers and Scotland I only watch boxing and maybe tennis when Andy Murray is playing. SKY are cutting back on their boxing coverage so my days with SKY Sports might be numbered.

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Along with mobile apps , cheaper price for me and I have always preferred the Sky+ software if I'm honest.



I can't see a similar deal coming off Richard I believe BT will want to make the channel most attractive on its own platform but I guess it's all speculation and time will tell.



I fear you could be right

that could change when the big september price rice comes in MM

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by Dave42

that could change when the big september price rice comes in MM

Do you know something we don't Dave

A price rise is inevitable one would think however I'm not sure about big

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Do you know something we don't Dave

A price rise is inevitable one would think however I'm not sure about big

well they gonna make up for last year price freeze and paying more for football for sure MM so i bet will be big

[andy_m]

A season ticket at London's premier club (all true apart from the premier bit) is about £400. That's about the same as a year's subscription to Sky Sports. The difference, of course, is the train fare and a pint or two of Palace ale (Neil Morrissey, actor, Palace fan, brewery owner-who knew!), so as much as I hate to say it, when I take into account the fact that I work shifts and end up paying for games I can't attend, I'm better of subscribing to Sky Sports than I am going to watch my favourite team. I have, for the first time in almost twenty years, given up my season ticket this year because of work commitments. My money will probably now go to Sky, rather than the only club outside of the Premier League likely to have a category 1 academy. I was going that way anyway because of f1, but have probably been tipped over the edge by the loss of ESPN's rights. And yet neither the Premier League nor Sky need my money, and I don't care about them, whilst Palace clearly do need my money and I spend my every waking hour doing what I can to ensure master m understands the appeal.

What I'm trying to say is that you can't put a price on the intangibles. You can't put a price on the fact that the player I saw score against Wolves in the play off's is now the manager. You can't cost the fact that the club mascot is actually the same eagle I can take the boy to see at the local bird sanctuary. You can't put a price on the fact that my photograph album includes pictures of the day I was a mascot and shows England internationals (well, Geoff Thomas) in their pants. But you can put a price on Sky Sports, and you can be clear with the bank manager about what that cost is. But should you? I've got a lot of sympathy for the argument that says we should take the opportunity to get down to or local club (unless that's Brighton)-I wish I could feel confident that a rights deal by a minority platform for an inflated price would lead to that, but it won't. Simply not good for the game or the consumer who will have to pay more. Football at the top end was beginning to show that it understood the need to get it's house in order-ticket priceswere coming down, so were wages. Now we have an incredible amount of money pumped into the game, paid for by the consumer who is already struggling to attend live matches-free football on the top tier of the Virgin platform allowed people their Prem fix whilst also allowing investment on a local level. Apart from being disappointing news for cable customers, I can't see how this can be particularly good for football. Shame.