When Saturday comes ,Not !!

I think one year I only had 1 in the whole season. Miss the 3pm saturday days. Have one tomorrow strangely enough.

Hey Thorney. I’m not sure where everyone has gone off our boards - maybe it’s because we’re doing ok but it’s dead on here.

I’ll respond though.

I guess this is the result of doing a deal with the devil. All the mega billions pumped in to the game from TV companies means that teams like ours can actually compete more closely with the likes of the top 6 because revenue is no longer linked to the biggest gate or brand.

Look how hoop Newcastle are this year but they can still attract a £37m striker!

In many ways, I like the way tv revenue has evened out the revenue (many arguments which I agree with that not enough money moves down the leagues though).

What’s the flip side - games and schedules now at the mercy of media providers. If I’m honest with you, anti-social game times don’t actually affect me that much as I have a stupid travel no matter when we play so rely on the car.

However I totally sympathise with those fans that have followed out club year after year that are now being ostracised due to kick off times. Shift workers who work their hours around games, or people with a mob-fri 9-5 that struggle to make a Friday/Monday game.

I get it. But unless there is a huge fan revolt I think it will only get worse.

Do we think the current situation of being able to see our goals online hours after the game has finished is worse than the days of ceefax refreshing every 1 minute with some text? Do we enjoy the fact we can watch more and more football on the tv as a result?

We do unfortunately. And whilst there is a demand for people to watch and pay for football, it will only get worse.

If you want to stop it the answer is simple.

Cancel you sky contract
Cancel you BT Sports contract
Cancel your Amazon membership

Until enough people do that, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.

What I would argued vehemently for though, is reduced ticket prices. Stop pricing genuine football fans out of the game and paying players and staff such obscene wages whilst charging so much to attend the match. It’s unfair and unnecessary now such a large proportion of revenue comes from TV.

Hand the match-day back to the fans. Increase the capacity, charge less and help people watch live football. Because without those people, the rest comes falling down like a pack of cards.

Its win win for the premier league and broadcasters.

They know that fans are not going to stop turning up to games, and they know that plenty of fat geordies are going to watch the Leicester Liverpool game at 8pm on boxing day, Anfield will be a sell out.

You have to remember the premier league is broadcast all over the world, an 8pm kick off might not suit an individual, but its great for broadcasting into the USA.

Until too many individual fans are inconvenienced enough resulting in half filled stadiums, the premier league product will remain strong. Fans are going to carry on being taken for granted.

Plus we all benefit from being able to watch great football on saturday evenings, monday nights etc when its not our team playing, especially when spurs are losing!

If you want to keep more 3pm Saturday kick-offs, get the FA to cancel the draconian "No televised games between 3pm and 5pm on a Saturday" law. Then not so many will be shifted.

If that rule was not in, you could have at least 2 televised games on a Saturday afternoon across two platforms that wouldnt have to move

In fact, in theory you could broadcast them all at once, similar to how BT Sport do the Champions League. Why not nowadays?

I thought that was a European rule not the FA?

Sign of the times, thorney. And a price of success.
If you want regular 3pm kick-offs, your best chance is to hope for relegation.

comment by True Blue (U9486)
posted 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
I thought that was a European rule not the FA?
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Probably is, i don't actually know. But they show PL games across Europe at these times... lol

comment by The_Dungeon_Master (U4830)
posted 1 hour, 53 minutes ago
Sign of the times, thorney. And a price of success.
If you want regular 3pm kick-offs, your best chance is to hope for relegation.
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And the bonus of another 4 home games for the same Wonga. Aaah - those were the days!

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