It Could Get A Bit Messi In Here - The Football Thread.

wokeupnew said:
I agree with all of this, bin the EFL cup, money down the pyramid is fine, but the voting power is terrible. There may never be another Leicester City if that happens.

I'm fortunate that all PL games are on NBC/Peacock and not BT, Sky, BBC, Amazon, or whatever else folks in the UK have to deal with. I'm hearing it'll be like 15 pounds per game for PPV??? that's madness. Illegal streamers will be in full demand.
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Well here’s the deal. To protect attendances down the pyramid the Premier League has always been limited by law in the proportion of games on tele, with an absolute bar on 3pm games being broadcast in the U.K. Because of geography, population size and history we have the same pay tv providers so we get the same plus an Irish broadcaster picks up one 3pm game on a Saturday live.

With COVID they are allowed to televise them all until crowds come back. This was originally all free, under extreme pressure from government so the Premier League split it between the broadcasters based on how much they paid in. I think out of 45 Amazon and BBC got 1 each (BBC only pays for highlights to show match of the day at night and Amazon has 2 holiday match days where it shows all 10 but nothing else). The rest were given to Sky and BT provided they could be accessed free of charge if your provider carried their channels.

They’ve now decided to dump that and charge £15 ppv per match, arguing that this is cheaper than a match ticket (like they’re comparible). All indications are that the clubs were on board with ppv but that the price being as high as £15 was under extreme pressure from the broadcasters looking to recoup some of their losses from the whole COVID situ. Stinks.
 
Thackeraye said:
Forget Project Big Picture, Scotland just won three international games in a row! We're now one game off getting to the Euro's, where we will inevitably do a Scotland and gloriously fail. It's against Serbia, so we'll probably get pumped.

@Joe Mac - out of interest, why would you go to an APL league of 18?
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I agree with the premise that far too much of the league aims just to exist in the premier league and that making relegation more likely might make them strive for more. I also think that less games should mean higher quality and I’d be up for tha by doing that and getting rid of the League Cup, which I’ve never liked, and dropping 4 games would be the preferable way around that, particularly if it allows the early round FA Cup replays to remain.
 
Joe Mac said:
I agree with the premise that far too much of the league aims just to exist in the premier league and that making relegation more likely might make them strive for more. I also think that less games should mean higher quality and I’d be up for tha by doing that and getting rid of the League Cup, which I’ve never liked, and dropping 4 games would be the preferable way around that, particularly if it allows the early round FA Cup replays to remain.
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Yeah, the League Cup is pointless. I wonder if it would mean more if it excluded EPL and maybe Championship teams?
 
bettim84 said:
Yeah, the League Cup is pointless. I wonder if it would mean more if it excluded EPL and maybe Championship teams?
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I think it’d mean less tbh and the Football League already has a separate knock out tournament for L1 & L2 to give them a bigger chance at a trophy and a day out at Wembley. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called now.

Its an anachronism from a past era, a throwback to the late 50s and 60s when the Football League was trying to fill up the calendar to make it increasingly difficult for English clubs to compete in the newly established European trophies.
 
Joe Mac said:
I think it’d mean less tbh and the Football League already has a separate knock out tournament for L1 & L2 to give them a bigger chance at a trophy and a day out at Wembley. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called now.

Its an anachronism from a past era, a throwback to the late 50s and 60s when the Football League was trying to fill up the calendar to make it increasingly difficult for English clubs to compete in the newly established European trophies.
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Football surely can be slow to evolve. Brazilian clubs are still bogged down by freaking “State Championships” (!) that eat up a good 3 months of the season... They also still follow a calendar-year type calendar as opposed to the August-May European schedule, which often leads to Brazilian clubs getting devastated by outgoing transfers smack in the middle of their season... It’s not great.
 
bettim84 said:
Football surely can be slow to evolve. Brazilian clubs are still bogged down by freaking “State Championships” (!) that eat up a good 3 months of the season... They also still follow a calendar-year type calendar as opposed to the August-May European schedule, which often leads to Brazilian clubs getting devastated by outgoing transfers smack in the middle of their season... It’s not great.
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Isn’t that partially geographic. Football is traditionally a winter game, I wouldn’t play in the British summer, never mind the Brazilian one. Would aligning with the European calendar not mean that games in North Brazil, particularly in high humidity areas around the Amazon, being of a really low quality in the summer months due to the difficulty of playing in those conditions? I did always think it was mad how regional your football system was without a proper unified national league system until relatively recently.
 
wokeupnew said:
I agree with all of this, bin the EFL cup, money down the pyramid is fine, but the voting power is terrible. There may never be another Leicester City if that happens.

I'm fortunate that all PL games are on NBC/Peacock and not BT, Sky, BBC, Amazon, or whatever else folks in the UK have to deal with. I'm hearing it'll be like 15 pounds per game for PPV??? that's madness. Illegal streamers will be in full demand.


This is a great video on how the PL should just create their own streaming network instead of selling rights to countless different advertisers

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Over here it's usually just Sky / BT. Amazon had a couple of days around Christmas where they showed every game - that was pretty cool, reminded me of NFL Red Zone. I'm not sure if they plan to do that again this year - EDIT - they are on 15th & 28th December.

What they have done in Scotland (I think) is if you bought a season ticket then you get the PPV access included for the home games. If you want to watch the away games then you need to buy a PPV pass for whatever team you are playing.

Or you could do what I do and buy the international streaming package at £14.99 p/month and watch all of my team's games via VPN.
 
bettim84 said:
Yeah, the League Cup is pointless. I wonder if it would mean more if it excluded EPL and maybe Championship teams?
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Joe Mac said:
I think it’d mean less tbh and the Football League already has a separate knock out tournament for L1 & L2 to give them a bigger chance at a trophy and a day out at Wembley. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called now.

Its an anachronism from a past era, a throwback to the late 50s and 60s when the Football League was trying to fill up the calendar to make it increasingly difficult for English clubs to compete in the newly established European trophies.
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In an ideal situation, bin the League Cup and institute a winter break for players like they do in Germany. Given, they have 18 teams and not 20, their winter break is 6 weeks long from mid-December to end of January. That's a LONG time. In England it could easily be two or three weeks in the beginning of the year. I love watching the festive fixtures but maybe schedule additional games mid-week in September/October where the League Cup games were in order to have the break. Also, in Germany because of the long break they even schedule friendlies between teams to warm back up for competitive fixtures. If clubs want to make some money, sell those friendlies on a PPV scale.
 
wokeupnew said:
In an ideal situation, bin the League Cup and institute a winter break for players like they do in Germany. Given, they have 18 teams and not 20, their winter break is 6 weeks long from mid-December to end of January. That's a LONG time. In England it could easily be two or three weeks in the beginning of the year. I love watching the festive fixtures but maybe schedule additional games mid-week in September/October where the League Cup games were in order to have the break. Also, in Germany because of the long break they even schedule friendlies between teams to warm back up for competitive fixtures. If clubs want to make some money, sell those friendlies on a PPV scale.
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They have instituted a winter break in the premier league. They spilt a game week in January so every team gets two weeks without a match. Maybe losing the league cup would allow a month. 6 weeks is far too long, that’s half the summer break! If it was to be be brought in for longer in England they should maintain the Christmas traditions and the 3rd Round of the Cup being the first weekend of the new year. Then break, start back with the FA Cup 4th round and then the premier league the week after. Most friendlies are on ppv on the clubs own channels, I’ve yet to meet anyone who has ever bought one and I know some pretty rabid football fans
 
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wokeupnew said:
wait, is that new for this year?
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No started last season. They play 5 games one week. So the 10 teams not playing that week have it off. They then play their 5 matches the following weekend. Works out everyone gets a fortnight off without a blackout for the broadcasters.
 
Joe Mac said:
No started last season. They play 5 games one week. So the 10 teams not playing that week have it off. They then play their 5 matches the following weekend. Works out everyone gets a fortnight off without a blackout for the broadcasters.
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I must have completed forgotten that lol
 
Joe Mac said:
Isn’t that partially geographic. Football is traditionally a winter game, I wouldn’t play in the British summer, never mind the Brazilian one. Would aligning with the European calendar not mean that games in North Brazil, particularly in high humidity areas around the Amazon, being of a really low quality in the summer months due to the difficulty of playing in those conditions? I did always think it was mad how regional your football system was without a proper unified national league system until relatively recently.
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Well, there are no relevant teams near the Amazon (there is also no winter there, fwiw).

I honestly don’t think climate is as big of a factor as one would imagine. As it is, teams play from February to December already. I think the reason for the break has more to do with cultural reasons (people are accustomed to having a summer break in December/January).
 
bettim84 said:
Well, there are no relevant teams near the Amazon (there is also no winter there, fwiw).

I honestly don’t think climate is as big of a factor as one would imagine. As it is, teams play from February to December already. I think the reason for the break has more to do with cultural reasons (people are accustomed to having a summer break in December/January).
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That’s fair enough then! I suppose it’s cultural here to a degree with the break aligning to the traditional summer holidays for education etc. We also traditionally tend to fill that break with more “summer sports” like cricket or tennis. Even in Europe though there are summer leagues in Scandinavia and Russia to avoid the harsh winters. Also randomly we have one here which makes no sense. The original idea was that players were in the best shape and match sharp for the European qualifiers in the summer. In reality it’s put the game in competition with the All Ireland for the GAA and those sports are practically a religion here!
 
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