General 3pm "blackout" Yes, No or Maybe?

Saturday 3pm "blackout" yes, no or maybe

  • Yes

    Votes: 21 30.0%

  • No

    Votes: 37 52.9%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 12 17.1%
  • Total voters
    70
  • Poll closed .
Marked Ox said:
The PL clubs will then say "well we should be able to do that" which the argument then leads to affecting Oxford crowds in the longer term so PL viewers have plenty to do with it, especially the young/kids who could be OUFC's future supporters.
Click to expand...
Simple - tell them no.
 
ThatSlopesATwelfthMan said:
Don't get me wrong there are plenty of tensions and complexities here and he does a good job of highlighting them but to conclude that the status quo is the only answer is madness
Click to expand...
Dale Johnson is a full-time sycophant. He’s primarily known for explaining in detail how and why every last refereeing and VAR decision is absolutely spot on. His views have almost no value as they only ever side with the authorities. Hence his conclusion that is essentially, “This can never be bettered, case closed!”

His core message when you cut the fat away is largely, “We’re mainly looking out for you, the little clubs and the little people, because nobody is going to watch your matches in the flesh if a camera is turned on by the halfway line, or if the irresistible Premier League calendar is wide open in terms of access.” The biggest and most popular PL matches in terms of viewing figures are already moved away from Saturday at 3pm as it is, so he’s basically suggesting that Newcastle v Burnley or Brighton v Southampton is a potential threat to any club south of the Championship, because who on earth could resist the pull of such incredible fixtures? It is ultimately one of the most British arguments ever. Tell the people lower down that they barely have anything going for them, that someone is coming to steal what little they’ve apparently got, and then try to make them rally against ever changing anything, which obviously suits the bigger boys just fine. The Premier League is only as big as it is because nearly 30 years ago they switched some cameras on and started moving games around so that they didn’t clash with anything else. They aren’t going to suddenly go back on that and put Man U v Liverpool or Arsenal v Spurs on at 3pm on a Saturday again, because they don’t want to lose a single viewer. They want every single person who goes to any other game on a Saturday afternoon to watch those matches, so they aren’t going to go head to head with them. Which basically means that entire half of the argument goes in the bin, unless he really is suggesting with a straight face that me being able to watch Everton v Crystal Palace at the same time Oxford host Wycombe is going to mean that I’m glued to the sofa.

That people like Dale Johnson are talking about this and trying to explain that it’s armageddon in waiting is ultimately proof that this is a nonsense. It also tells us that somebody somewhere is getting a bit twitchy because people are starting to ask really good questions about why things are the way they are. This idea that the big wigs of football are looking out for the rest of the pyramid, after everything that has happened in the last year alone let alone the years prior, is just wonderful. ‘Project Big Picture’, salary and squad caps that reduce the ability of lower league clubs to sign top young talent on permanent deals and profit from their sale down the line, academy teams in the tinpot trophy that have the ability to prevent L1 and L2 clubs from a money spinning game at Wembley by knocking them out, then you look back a few years more at things like EPPP… glorious. I also love how non-League clubs with artificial pitches that look and feel virtually identical to regular grass these days aren’t allowed to participate in the EFL unless they rip it all up. Pitches that allow those clubs to rent the facilities out to other local clubs (and which also protect from the risk of postponements and therefore safeguard revenue), which provides an income stream as well as a community asset. Won’t somebody think of those poor luvvies and what’s going to happen to them with no 3pm blackout? Nobody will ever watch a game at Oxford City again if they could be at home watching Norwich v West Ham or Brentford v Wolves, or if they could be spending their tenner on streaming Accrington v AFC Wimbledon with a single camera setup and terrible replays. Who could resist that? Obviously the actual experience of attending a match at any level is irrelevant to most people and why they go to football, eh Dale?

Most of all, though, I love the idea that clubs like OUFC need saving from their own fans. As we’ve seen from every single non-Saturday game being available for purchase on iFollow for the past several seasons, nobody attends those games. Ever. All those Tuesday night games with empty stadiums… heartbreaking stuff. I especially like it when teams from several hours away still bring hundreds upon hundreds of fans for an evening game in midweek, even though they could all watch at home for less money, no fuel costs, no time off work or crashing in at 1am before getting up five hours later etc. Look at the carnage inflicted by that pesky camera at the back of the south stand. Just awful. Someone should do the sensible thing and smash it up.

And to think, these same types of people used over 10,000 fans watching Oxford v Luton on a Tuesday night in the fifth tier as part of the failed 2018 World Cup bid, to highlight how incredibly strong and unique English football, the fan culture and the wider pyramid is. Yet those same people are now saying that something so powerful that they thought it could help win the country a World Cup can be destroyed with a camera and a ten quid payment gateway being available on a Saturday, or by Aston Villa v Watford being more widely available to watch from the sofa. From being held up as a potential World Cup ace card to being destroyed by a tripod and more people being able to see John McGinn and Ismaila Sarr running around on the telly at 3pm. What an incredible fall from grace.

But it’s good that Dale, who works for a multi-billion dollar global sports broadcaster who own a bunch of the monopolised licensing rights, is here to help. Thank God this entire argument isn’t purely about helping to protect the Premier League and its commercial partners, and to ensure that they maintain their grip on the access to and monetisation of English football. For a second there I was starting to think that they were actually worried about more people having the opportunity to spend £10 on streaming an EFL game rather than being snookered into paying through the nose for Sky Sports, and having to watch Soccer Saturday.

I just hope that as this subject continues to pop up that the British public remember what’s really important and assume the default position: protecting the few measly crumbs on their plate (and people want to steal those why?) rather than daring to dream that they could ever have a steak like the people telling them that their crumbs are at risk.
 
Wandering Yellow said:
Is it just me who sort of loves the idea of Friday night matches?
Imagine Oxford v Swindon on a Friday night. It would be absolute carnage.
Click to expand...
And a nice 3 points to boot!

On the blackout, I think what @SteMerritt suggests is absolutely right, you can't dismiss an idea which a lot of your customer base is calling for based on what could be out of date assumptions. You'd need to do this over probably a season to get a full picture of its impact.

As others have said, the PL teams could still be covered by the blackout (to protect the little guys), if that were to be the case, the only thing likely to reduce our revenue is the matchday experience not being worth the extra money and effort involved in going to a game, and that is within our control.
 
I realise we are living in an ever increasingly online and digital world for all aspects of life from shopping to music and entertainment.

On one of the FB groups I am in, I saw a woman complaining that after not going into town 18months, she was very disappointed how many shops had closed.

I am perhaps worried that once fans get in the habit of watching from home, they will stop buying a season ticket and buy a stream instead (after iFollow take their cut), and as said elsewhere if more than 1 person is viewing the stream it is even less.

In addition, the benefit to the local economy should be taken into account. There are many other business and jobs that rely on match day trade as well as the club and ancillary revenues.
 
RyanioBirdio said:
Dale Johnson is a full-time sycophant. He’s primarily known for explaining in detail how and why every last refereeing and VAR decision is absolutely spot on. His views have almost no value as they only ever side with the authorities. Hence his conclusion that is essentially, “This can never be bettered, case closed!”

His core message when you cut the fat away is largely, “We’re mainly looking out for you, the little clubs and the little people, because nobody is going to watch your matches in the flesh if a camera is turned on by the halfway line, or if the irresistible Premier League calendar is wide open in terms of access.” The biggest and most popular PL matches in terms of viewing figures are already moved away from Saturday at 3pm as it is, so he’s basically suggesting that Newcastle v Burnley or Brighton v Southampton is a potential threat to any club south of the Championship, because who on earth could resist the pull of such incredible fixtures? It is ultimately one of the most British arguments ever. Tell the people lower down that they barely have anything going for them, that someone is coming to steal what little they’ve apparently got, and then try to make them rally against ever changing anything, which obviously suits the bigger boys just fine. The Premier League is only as big as it is because nearly 30 years ago they switched some cameras on and started moving games around so that they didn’t clash with anything else. They aren’t going to suddenly go back on that and put Man U v Liverpool or Arsenal v Spurs on at 3pm on a Saturday again, because they don’t want to lose a single viewer. They want every single person who goes to any other game on a Saturday afternoon to watch those matches, so they aren’t going to go head to head with them. Which basically means that entire half of the argument goes in the bin, unless he really is suggesting with a straight face that me being able to watch Everton v Crystal Palace at the same time Oxford host Wycombe is going to mean that I’m glued to the sofa.

That people like Dale Johnson are talking about this and trying to explain that it’s armageddon in waiting is ultimately proof that this is a nonsense. It also tells us that somebody somewhere is getting a bit twitchy because people are starting to ask really good questions about why things are the way they are. This idea that the big wigs of football are looking out for the rest of the pyramid, after everything that has happened in the last year alone let alone the years prior, is just wonderful. ‘Project Big Picture’, salary and squad caps that reduce the ability of lower league clubs to sign top young talent on permanent deals and profit from their sale down the line, academy teams in the tinpot trophy that have the ability to prevent L1 and L2 clubs from a money spinning game at Wembley by knocking them out, then you look back a few years more at things like EPPP… glorious. I also love how non-League clubs with artificial pitches that look and feel virtually identical to regular grass these days aren’t allowed to participate in the EFL unless they rip it all up. Pitches that allow those clubs to rent the facilities out to other local clubs (and which also protect from the risk of postponements and therefore safeguard revenue), which provides an income stream as well as a community asset. Won’t somebody think of those poor luvvies and what’s going to happen to them with no 3pm blackout? Nobody will ever watch a game at Oxford City again if they could be at home watching Norwich v West Ham or Brentford v Wolves, or if they could be spending their tenner on streaming Accrington v AFC Wimbledon with a single camera setup and terrible replays. Who could resist that? Obviously the actual experience of attending a match at any level is irrelevant to most people and why they go to football, eh Dale?

Most of all, though, I love the idea that clubs like OUFC need saving from their own fans. As we’ve seen from every single non-Saturday game being available for purchase on iFollow for the past several seasons, nobody attends those games. Ever. All those Tuesday night games with empty stadiums… heartbreaking stuff. I especially like it when teams from several hours away still bring hundreds upon hundreds of fans for an evening game in midweek, even though they could all watch at home for less money, no fuel costs, no time off work or crashing in at 1am before getting up five hours later etc. Look at the carnage inflicted by that pesky camera at the back of the south stand. Just awful. Someone should do the sensible thing and smash it up.

And to think, these same types of people used over 10,000 fans watching Oxford v Luton on a Tuesday night in the fifth tier as part of the failed 2018 World Cup bid, to highlight how incredibly strong and unique English football, the fan culture and the wider pyramid is. Yet those same people are now saying that something so powerful that they thought it could help win the country a World Cup can be destroyed with a camera and a ten quid payment gateway being available on a Saturday, or by Aston Villa v Watford being more widely available to watch from the sofa. From being held up as a potential World Cup ace card to being destroyed by a tripod and more people being able to see John McGinn and Ismaila Sarr running around on the telly at 3pm. What an incredible fall from grace.

But it’s good that Dale, who works for a multi-billion dollar global sports broadcaster who own a bunch of the monopolised licensing rights, is here to help. Thank God this entire argument isn’t purely about helping to protect the Premier League and its commercial partners, and to ensure that they maintain their grip on the access to and monetisation of English football. For a second there I was starting to think that they were actually worried about more people having the opportunity to spend £10 on streaming an EFL game rather than being snookered into paying through the nose for Sky Sports, and having to watch Soccer Saturday.

I just hope that as this subject continues to pop up that the British public remember what’s really important and assume the default position: protecting the few measly crumbs on their plate (and people want to steal those why?) rather than daring to dream that they could ever have a steak like the people telling them that their crumbs are at risk.
Click to expand...
Mods!! Quick, censor this heretic before someone wakes up!

The suggestion that I and Mrs Lounger would suddenly stop going to the live game because we could stay at home and watch on the tele is just so patronising that I feel insulted by Mr McWilliams. We live for the atmosphere, the sounds, the collective, the opportunity to shout and yell and wave our arms at the opposition. To feel the gathered fellow supporters.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is just living in the past. (or works for SKY)
 
Sarge said:
wonder if this ifollow or not to follow situation could be a 'job' for the eventually elected Fans Council?.... or if its a subject that's not permitted within their (controlled) mandate?
Click to expand...
It's a subject that affects the supporters, ergo, it is a matter for the Supporters' Panel to take forward.

As all the documentation becomes available (up on the club website soon) then it will become clear what the Supporters' Panel can take on. There is really very little that the panel won't be able to discuss with the club.
 
So does the EFL , or whoever, attempt a hybrid model?

What if watching online was more expensive than a match day ticket?

So we sell out at an away game at £20 but ifollow is on sale at £30? That gets shared betwixt home & away less providers cut.

Many options are possible, but somebody needs to break down the whole thing from the wider economical picture to the "bums on seats" numbers then make an informed decision.
 
MarkG said:
I realise we are living in an ever increasingly online and digital world for all aspects of life from shopping to music and entertainment.

On one of the FB groups I am in, I saw a woman complaining that after not going into town 18months, she was very disappointed how many shops had closed.

I am perhaps worried that once fans get in the habit of watching from home, they will stop buying a season ticket and buy a stream instead (after iFollow take their cut), and as said elsewhere if more than 1 person is viewing the stream it is even less.

In addition, the benefit to the local economy should be taken into account. There are many other business and jobs that rely on match day trade as well as the club and ancillary revenues.
Click to expand...

As you say, this is part of the wider picture of entertainment provision.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for the EFL clubs to get ahead of the curve and offer a unique, multifaceted approach to fan experience to maximise exposure, access and (as a result) revenue? Get a new approach and ditch the old models? Is getting money from TV going to survive in the age of streaming?
  • Come to the match for a great day out
  • Can't get to away matches? Don't miss out
  • Exiled in another part of the UK? Still get involved
  • Exiled in another country? You might have to get up early but join us
  • Have commitments that mean you can't attend in person regularly? Cheer the team at home when you can't go
Look at what Warner Bros and Disney are doing with films, as they move towards simultaneous release through streaming and cinemas. With the blackouts, are clubs limiting their options and hobbling themselves?
 
Left Wing Cross said:
As you say, this is part of the wider picture of entertainment provision.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for the EFL clubs to get ahead of the curve and offer a unique, multifaceted approach to fan experience to maximise exposure, access and (as a result) revenue? Get a new approach and ditch the old models? Is getting money from TV going to survive in the age of streaming?
  • Come to the match for a great day out
  • Can't get to away matches? Don't miss out
  • Exiled in another part of the UK? Still get involved
  • Exiled in another country? You might have to get up early but join us
  • Have commitments that mean you can't attend in person regularly? Cheer the team at home when you can't go
Look at what Warner Bros and Disney are doing with films, as they move towards simultaneous release through streaming and cinemas. With the blackouts, are clubs limiting their options and hobbling themselves?
Click to expand...

I get away games but make it that it is only available through the home club's iFollow, so the home team still gets the money and the price should at least match the matchday ticket price. I'm a maybe overall as I can see both arguments but not sure what the unintended consequences/risks are in the long term.
 
Manorlounger said:
Mods!! Quick, censor this heretic before someone wakes up!

The suggestion that I and Mrs Lounger would suddenly stop going to the live game because we could stay at home and watch on the tele is just so patronising that I feel insulted by Mr McWilliams. We live for the atmosphere, the sounds, the collective, the opportunity to shout and yell and wave our arms at the opposition. To feel the gathered fellow supporters.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is just living in the past. (or works for SKY)
Click to expand...
What, really? That will mean I'll have to go back and read the damn post, I usually just scroll past his overly long rants, despite them being nicely formatted. Although he does tend to make a bit of sense, granted, in a colourfully long-winded way.
 
Manorlounger said:
Mods!! Quick, censor this heretic before someone wakes up!

The suggestion that I and Mrs Lounger would suddenly stop going to the live game because we could stay at home and watch on the tele is just so patronising that I feel insulted by Mr McWilliams. We live for the atmosphere, the sounds, the collective, the opportunity to shout and yell and wave our arms at the opposition. To feel the gathered fellow supporters.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is just living in the past. (or works for SKY)
Click to expand...

This isn't about you are I attending games. In fact, it probably affects very few people who post on here who would either go to games in the freezing rain or are exiles unable to attend more than a handful of games a year. Their attendance and spending remains fairly static.

However, all clubs, our included, have casual fans who go to half a dozen games a season, the more attractive fixtures or boxing day games. They may get taken along by other family and friends, work days out, local football clubs etc. The problem is if these fans decide that it's easier, cheaper, or warmer and more comfortable to watch the games from home.

A dad and two kids might want to check out the local side, but they choice to watch a game at home rather than having to park miles away or get caught in the car park for 45 minutes after a game. Not only do we lose around £50 in matchday revenue, plus food, drink, programmes, merchandise etc, they miss the opportunity to get the buzz that only live football offers and separates watching Oxford from watching any other shitty PL team.

We have to remember what it was about coming to football that first got us excited. It wasn't just the game, but the crowd, the smells, the noise, the rivalries that somehow don't translate well on tv. The danger with a disposable service is that it becomes much harder to turn that first casual experience into the lifelong fans that we are.

That's not to say that we can't find a way forward. Work means that midweek away games are almost impossible to get to. Family life makes longer trips hard. iFollow allowed me to watch more games last season than I've seen for years, and I'd happily do the same if it was still available.

But it's far from easy, especially when we're hoping to have a bigger and better stadium in the coming years that will rely on casual fans more than ever.

Ryan makes some good points on his post, but as he often says, this isn't about picking sides and drawing weapons. We need to find a way that opens up the Oxford United experience to a wider audience but without jeopardising the one significant income stream we have.
 
SteMerritt said:
What, really? That will mean I'll have to go back and read the damn post, I usually just scroll past his overly long rants, despite them being nicely formatted. Although he does tend to make a bit of sense, granted, in a colourfully long-winded way.
Click to expand...
Sorry, mine are a bit waffly too!! I'll go and talk about cars on the transfer window thread to distract you and you can leave @Malc to trawl through this!!!
 
Manorlounger said:
The suggestion that I and Mrs Lounger would suddenly stop going to the live game because we could stay at home and watch on the tele is just so patronising that I feel insulted by Mr McWilliams. We live for the atmosphere, the sounds, the collective, the opportunity to shout and yell and wave our arms at the opposition. To feel the gathered fellow supporters.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is just living in the past. (or works for SKY)
Click to expand...
Are you honestly telling me that you can resist the opportunity to stay at home on a Saturday afternoon and watch such global superstars as Brighton’s utility man Pascal Groß, West Ham’s set piece whiz Aaron Cresswell and Everton’s evergreen full back Seamus Coleman, who Sky can’t help but remind us only cost them £60,000 from Sligo Rovers every f*cking time he’s on the telly? I don’t believe you.

I just feel silly for going to Fleetwood on a Wednesday night with several hundred other Oxford fans a few seasons back, when we could’ve all been at home instead. Imagine if that game wasn’t available on iFollow? We would’ve sold out the entire away end for sure, especially with it being midweek.

Bloody single camera access, ruining football in England.
 
Think of the green benefit as well.
No longer will folk need to drive 2.5 litre gas guzzlers to Accrington on a Tuesday evening.
Just log on to ifollow.

These are the sort of choices we need to make to save the planet. *

*Greta likes this.
 
RyanioBirdio said:
Dale Johnson is a full-time sycophant. He’s primarily known for explaining in detail how and why every last refereeing and VAR decision is absolutely spot on. His views have almost no value as they only ever side with the authorities. Hence his conclusion that is essentially, “This can never be bettered, case closed!”

His core message when you cut the fat away is largely, “We’re mainly looking out for you, the little clubs and the little people, because nobody is going to watch your matches in the flesh if a camera is turned on by the halfway line, or if the irresistible Premier League calendar is wide open in terms of access.” The biggest and most popular PL matches in terms of viewing figures are already moved away from Saturday at 3pm as it is, so he’s basically suggesting that Newcastle v Burnley or Brighton v Southampton is a potential threat to any club south of the Championship, because who on earth could resist the pull of such incredible fixtures? It is ultimately one of the most British arguments ever. Tell the people lower down that they barely have anything going for them, that someone is coming to steal what little they’ve apparently got, and then try to make them rally against ever changing anything, which obviously suits the bigger boys just fine. The Premier League is only as big as it is because nearly 30 years ago they switched some cameras on and started moving games around so that they didn’t clash with anything else. They aren’t going to suddenly go back on that and put Man U v Liverpool or Arsenal v Spurs on at 3pm on a Saturday again, because they don’t want to lose a single viewer. They want every single person who goes to any other game on a Saturday afternoon to watch those matches, so they aren’t going to go head to head with them. Which basically means that entire half of the argument goes in the bin, unless he really is suggesting with a straight face that me being able to watch Everton v Crystal Palace at the same time Oxford host Wycombe is going to mean that I’m glued to the sofa.

That people like Dale Johnson are talking about this and trying to explain that it’s armageddon in waiting is ultimately proof that this is a nonsense. It also tells us that somebody somewhere is getting a bit twitchy because people are starting to ask really good questions about why things are the way they are. This idea that the big wigs of football are looking out for the rest of the pyramid, after everything that has happened in the last year alone let alone the years prior, is just wonderful. ‘Project Big Picture’, salary and squad caps that reduce the ability of lower league clubs to sign top young talent on permanent deals and profit from their sale down the line, academy teams in the tinpot trophy that have the ability to prevent L1 and L2 clubs from a money spinning game at Wembley by knocking them out, then you look back a few years more at things like EPPP… glorious. I also love how non-League clubs with artificial pitches that look and feel virtually identical to regular grass these days aren’t allowed to participate in the EFL unless they rip it all up. Pitches that allow those clubs to rent the facilities out to other local clubs (and which also protect from the risk of postponements and therefore safeguard revenue), which provides an income stream as well as a community asset. Won’t somebody think of those poor luvvies and what’s going to happen to them with no 3pm blackout? Nobody will ever watch a game at Oxford City again if they could be at home watching Norwich v West Ham or Brentford v Wolves, or if they could be spending their tenner on streaming Accrington v AFC Wimbledon with a single camera setup and terrible replays. Who could resist that? Obviously the actual experience of attending a match at any level is irrelevant to most people and why they go to football, eh Dale?

Most of all, though, I love the idea that clubs like OUFC need saving from their own fans. As we’ve seen from every single non-Saturday game being available for purchase on iFollow for the past several seasons, nobody attends those games. Ever. All those Tuesday night games with empty stadiums… heartbreaking stuff. I especially like it when teams from several hours away still bring hundreds upon hundreds of fans for an evening game in midweek, even though they could all watch at home for less money, no fuel costs, no time off work or crashing in at 1am before getting up five hours later etc. Look at the carnage inflicted by that pesky camera at the back of the south stand. Just awful. Someone should do the sensible thing and smash it up.

And to think, these same types of people used over 10,000 fans watching Oxford v Luton on a Tuesday night in the fifth tier as part of the failed 2018 World Cup bid, to highlight how incredibly strong and unique English football, the fan culture and the wider pyramid is. Yet those same people are now saying that something so powerful that they thought it could help win the country a World Cup can be destroyed with a camera and a ten quid payment gateway being available on a Saturday, or by Aston Villa v Watford being more widely available to watch from the sofa. From being held up as a potential World Cup ace card to being destroyed by a tripod and more people being able to see John McGinn and Ismaila Sarr running around on the telly at 3pm. What an incredible fall from grace.

But it’s good that Dale, who works for a multi-billion dollar global sports broadcaster who own a bunch of the monopolised licensing rights, is here to help. Thank God this entire argument isn’t purely about helping to protect the Premier League and its commercial partners, and to ensure that they maintain their grip on the access to and monetisation of English football. For a second there I was starting to think that they were actually worried about more people having the opportunity to spend £10 on streaming an EFL game rather than being snookered into paying through the nose for Sky Sports, and having to watch Soccer Saturday.

I just hope that as this subject continues to pop up that the British public remember what’s really important and assume the default position: protecting the few measly crumbs on their plate (and people want to steal those why?) rather than daring to dream that they could ever have a steak like the people telling them that their crumbs are at risk.
Click to expand...
Excellent
 
RyanioBirdio said:
Are you honestly telling me that you can resist the opportunity to stay at home on a Saturday afternoon and watch such global superstars as Brighton’s utility man Pascal Groß, West Ham’s set piece whiz Aaron Cresswell and Everton’s evergreen full back Seamus Coleman, who Sky can’t help but remind us only cost them £60,000 from Sligo Rovers every f*cking time he’s on the telly? I don’t believe you.

I just feel silly for going to Fleetwood on a Wednesday night with several hundred other Oxford fans a few seasons back, when we could’ve all been at home instead. Imagine if that game wasn’t available on iFollow? We would’ve sold out the entire away end for sure, especially with it being midweek.

Bloody single camera access, ruining football in England.
Click to expand...
Well, now you put it like that. And I could have a nice glass of Claret and some cheese at the same time! Why didn't I think of that?
 
2 years ago who would have through that working from home would be the new normal for office workers, or that many people would be WFH 2 or 3 days a week and/or only calling in at the office on occasion, and that even after the pandemic is "over", WFH would still be the norm for many people.

The danger of people getting out of the habit of going to matches in person is that they get used to it and never come back. I've seen it many times on here. Some of our fans stopped coming for whatever reason and actually enjoyed whatever else they did on a Saturday.
 
Essexyellows said:
So does the EFL , or whoever, attempt a hybrid model?

What if watching online was more expensive than a match day ticket?

So we sell out at an away game at £20 but ifollow is on sale at £30? That gets shared betwixt home & away less providers cut.

Many options are possible, but somebody needs to break down the whole thing from the wider economical picture to the "bums on seats" numbers then make an informed decision.
Click to expand...
I get the avenue you're going down here, but there needs to be balance between what people can afford and what people are willing to pay. £30 for a single camera stream and you're going to turn away the majority of the audience whether through not being able to afford or not being willing to pay that for every game. 38 games at £30 each would be well over a grand, which nobody earning minimum wage or even in the 20-30k range is going to be able to afford, and then in a way we're back to the same problem where a big portion of a fanbase is being excluded. Perhaps clubs could sell "streaming season tickets" that give you access to all the league games for the same price as a season ticket? Exiles/those unable to go to games can then financially back their club in the same way a season ticket holder can and the loss of revenue would be negligible?

It's not an easy fix by any means, but the big issue right now is that there's no attempt to try and work out what's best. The TV companies want the status quo to continue, the EFL are happy to let the status quo continue whilst the TV companies spunk money at them, and as usual the people that get the short end of the stick are the fans. At the moment we're working with one piece of data: the current state of things. How can anyone claim to be able to make an informed decision on what's best for the clubs when only one side of the argument has had the opportunity to present data?

MarkG said:
2 years ago who would have through that working from home would be the new normal for office workers, or that many people would be WFH 2 or 3 days a week and/or only calling in at the office on occasion, and that even after the pandemic is "over", WFH would still be the norm for many people.

The danger of people getting out of the habit of going to matches in person is that they get used to it and never come back. I've seen it many times on here. Some of our fans stopped coming for whatever reason and actually enjoyed whatever else they did on a Saturday.
Click to expand...
As a counter point to that - maybe them not having to commit to a full matchday experience will help entice them back and we'll get an extra revenue stream from them? Much easier to commit to 90 minutes on a Saturday and they may even decide to attend a few games if they get the buzz back. Purely hypothetical but I'd wager it would happen for some.
 
Jolteon said:
I get the avenue you're going down here, but there needs to be balance between what people can afford and what people are willing to pay. £30 for a single camera stream and you're going to turn away the majority of the audience whether through not being able to afford or not being willing to pay that for every game. 38 games at £30 each would be well over a grand, which nobody earning minimum wage or even in the 20-30k range is going to be able to afford, and then in a way we're back to the same problem where a big portion of a fanbase is being excluded. Perhaps clubs could sell "streaming season tickets" that give you access to all the league games for the same price as a season ticket? Exiles/those unable to go to games can then financially back their club in the same way a season ticket holder can and the loss of revenue would be negligible?

It's not an easy fix by any means, but the big issue right now is that there's no attempt to try and work out what's best. The TV companies want the status quo to continue, the EFL are happy to let the status quo continue whilst the TV companies spunk money at them, and as usual the people that get the short end of the stick are the fans. At the moment we're working with one piece of data: the current state of things. How can anyone claim to be able to make an informed decision on what's best for the clubs when only one side of the argument has had the opportunity to present data?


As a counter point to that - maybe them not having to commit to a full matchday experience will help entice them back and we'll get an extra revenue stream from them? Much easier to commit to 90 minutes on a Saturday and they may even decide to attend a few games if they get the buzz back. Purely hypothetical but I'd wager it would happen for some.
Click to expand...

Can anyone in that earning bracket or less afford to "walk up" on the day?

I`m liking the streaming season ticket idea.

Would save the owners having to build a new stadium...... could have 20k every week with 7 or 8k "bums on seats".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom