Access to Premier League Games Denied To Faithful LCFC Fans

[Foxes_Trust]

The Foxes Trust is working with fellow Supporters Trusts to highlight an issue which needs urgently addressing ahead of the new season.

 

Under current plans, unlike Project Restart, not every Premier League game will be televised, with 160 matches receiving no live coverage in the UK.

 

Full Details HERE

[ozleicester]

[gw_leics772]

Just been reading this via newsnow link. Fair play to you all. This is so the right thing to do. 

 

Unfortunately, the cynic in me says that the fact this is even possible just shows the contempt we are treated with. A minor irritation to the TV companies and the league, and for that reason, and at this short notice, I can't see it changing. 

 

God bless illegal streams. But a big well done for mentioning that big elephant in the room. 

[Greg2607]

I think in the future we will see the premier league setting up a broadcasting company and doing this on their own anyway.  Season Tickets for each team, where you can stream directly every game.  It's a no brainer and the revenue they generate would be far in excess of anything they get currently from Sky et al.

[Lesta Legend]

IPTV and a good VPN

[Lako42]

The whole thing is a complete joyless farce. 

 

Football without the fans was bad enough. With absolutely nobody able to watch it's even more pointless. 

 

 

[FoyleFox]

The entire world can legally watch every Premier League game on tv, except the fans of the country it's actually played in.

 

I understand the broadcasters not showing games for free but without fans attending they could show all of the matches via subscription channels.

Edited 21 August 2020 by FoyleFox

[jammie82uk]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8648921/Premier-League-clubs-risk-wrath-fans-baulk-chance-live-matches.html

 

 

Premier League clubs have risked the wrath of their own fans by pricing themselves out of a deal that could have seen all matches televised live until the Government sanctions a return to full capacity stadiums.

 

Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime will show an extra 20 matches next season, but Sportsmail understands there was interest from the broadcasters in showing even more games, as they did during Project Restart. 

 

However, during initial talks the clubs made it clear that they would demand additional rights fees for the privilege so the negotiations never got off the ground. 

 

Premier League clubs have priced themselves out of a deal to all matches televised live

Sky, BT and Amazon have committed more than £5billion for live Premier League rights over three seasons and were not willing to spend any more to secure additional fixtures at a time of such financial uncertainty.

 

As a result fans will be unable to watch some of their club’s matches until at least October 3, the earliest point in the fixture list at which supporters will be allowed into stadiums — and even then capacity will be restricted to between 20 and 30 per cent.

 

As Sportsmail revealed earlier this week, the clubs also opted against exploring the possibility of streaming games on their websites to season-ticket holders, despite calls from West Ham and Crystal Palace for them to do so.

 

The one concession made by the clubs was to grant an additional 20 matches to the broadcasters, as revealed by MailOnline in advance of Thursday’s fixture publication, a move undertaken to compensate rights holders for the loss of four lucrative weekend slots in the truncated season. 

 

The deal would have been in place until the Government allowed fans to return to stadiums

Sky will get an extra 12 games, with six going to BT Sport and two to Amazon, taking the number of matches to be televised next season to 220.

 

The agreement over extra matches has been designed to prevent the need for further talks over another rebate, which Sky in particular could have pushed for given the loss of several of the most coveted Super Sunday slots.

 

Sky secured a £330m rebate from the Premier League, which will be paid over the next two seasons, for the loss of matches for three months during lockdown and the clubs were extremely reluctant to cede any more ground.

 

In addition to securing extra games, the rights holders have managed another victory by ensuring that no matches will be made available free-to-air next season.

 

During Project Restart the Premier League bowed to pressure from the Government to make live games more widely available by gifting four matches to the BBC, despite the fact they did not have any live rights, while others were shown on Sky’s free-to-air channel, Sky Pick.

 

Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon will show an extra 20 matches live next season

There will be no matches televised at 3pm on Saturday afternoons, however, despite UEFA removing broadcasting restrictions by suspending Article 48 during lockdown.

 

The TV selections for the early round of games will be announced next week following talks between the broadcasters. 

With fewer weekends available there will be two additional midweek programmes next season — one will be played across the weeks commencing January 11 and 18 and the second will be in the week starting May 10. All of those games will be broadcast live.

[Mehrez]

I’ve never understood the rebate thing, why do

PL clubs have to pay so much money to Sky when they got so many extra games for free and I bet a whole load of revenue on the back of them 

[Webbo]

Doesn't make any sense not to show at least 1   3 o'clock Saturday match per week while crowds aren't allowed. 

Edited 21 August 2020 by Webbo

[urban.spaceman]

This would not have been a problem if they'd build a Bentley's Roof replica outside the stadium, but they didn't listen to any of my suggestions when building the KP. 

[PhillippaT]

1 hour ago, Lesta Legend said:

IPTV and a good VPN

I don't think my ISP gives a damn, tbh... (Business-class BT line in my Mum's name/money...)

[TiffToff88]

Simple solution: just go to pretty much any country in the world other than England and you'll be able to watch literally every single English Premier League game on TV!

[PhillippaT]

Just now, urban.spaceman said:

This would not have been a problem if they'd build a Bentley's Roof replica outside the stadium, but they didn't listen to any of my suggestions when building the KP. 

Well, given it's Leicester - you'd be more likely to have student-filled tower blocks surrounding it, instead

[UniFox21]

7 minutes ago, Mehrez said:

I’ve never understood the rebate thing, why do

PL clubs have to pay so much money to Sky when they got so many extra games for free and I bet a whole load of revenue on the back of them 

Something related to the terms of their contract and the delayed finish. But you're right, Sky got so much out of it. Not sure why they couldn't have scrubbed the £330m rebate in return for airing all the games. 

[fox_up_north]

Slightly annoyed by the Mail implying it's clubs fault. Why shouldn't they want a bigger rights payment for showing more games?
All this does is give people the option of illegally streaming. Worse - now that everyone's become a bit more tech savvy over the last few months, it could really affect the likes of Sky and BT down the road as people realise they're paying a fortune for a service that's worse than overseas.

[Leicester_Loyal]

The more people illegally streaming games the better.

[Manwell Pablo]

47 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

The more people illegally streaming games the better.

Not really, the more people streaming the quicker the streams get shut down and the slower they work.

[Leicester_Loyal]

20 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

Not really, the more people streaming the quicker the streams get shut down and the slower they work.

Or keep handing over money to Sky, BT etc.

 

You pick the lesser of the two evils.

[Manwell Pablo]

7 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Or keep handing over money to Sky, BT etc.

 

You pick the lesser of the two evils.

TBF the problems the PL not the broadcasters. If it’s not Sky or BT then it’s someone else. 

 

 

 

 

[Leicester_Loyal]

2 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

TBF the problems the PL not the broadcasters. If it’s not Sky or BT then it’s someone else. 

 

 

I do agree with you bud, but streaming is becoming more and more popular so hopefully one day we'll see changes.

[Xen]

3 hours ago, Greg2607 said:

I think in the future we will see the premier league setting up a broadcasting company and doing this on their own anyway.  Season Tickets for each team, where you can stream directly every game.  It's a no brainer and the revenue they generate would be far in excess of anything they get currently from Sky et al.

Wouldnt be surprised if the current Amazon deal is a precursor to some sort of partnership - all the infrastructure is already in place and the quality of Amazon's streams last season was great. Bit of logistics to work out around pricing and exclusivity (ie. a 'club pass' to all Leicester games) but it would be a notable improvement on Sky/BT.

 

There's 2 more seasons left on the current TV deal though, so there won't be any significant changes anytime soon.

[Webbo]

I've said this before but if you let teams sell their own games directly then the teams that sell the most games will want the most money. Man U will sell 20 times more than us and get 20 times the money. The already uneven playing field will become so slanted in favour of the big clubs the rest of us will just be making up the numbers. 

Edited 21 August 2020 by Webbo

[Stuntman_Mike]

There should be a streaming network like Netflix just for the PL.

 

Imagine the money that would generate world wide and you can select the games you want. 

 

Pretty much like Amazon at Christmas, that was spot on.

Edited 21 August 2020 by Stuntman_Mike

[Footballwipe]

Quite - the collective selling and distribution of TV rights is absolutely pivotal to the setup we've got now. It's not perfect in the way that players/agent exploit this for ridiculous wages on mediocrity, but it keeps the television revenues relatively even, and that's vital.

 

There was much excitement a few months ago about the Premier League taking the rights in-house as a Netflix-style model, charging £15 per month and showing the matches. A bank of On-demand content, original programming. It'd be very popular. However, is it £5bn per season popular, which is what it'd have to be to persuade them to go down this route, I imagine.

 

Their recent rights deal in the Nordic countries suggests this isn't a model they want to do widely in the rest of the world, so let's see.

 

What can be said, however, that this situation is a farce. The fact that someone living 300 yards from a Premier League ground, who can't attend the game due to the pandemic isn't able to legally watch their team play a match, but someone 12,000 miles away can sit back and relax. Nothing wrong with the person 12,000 miles away watching it; knock yourself out.

 

We're in a period of unprecedented times, and the weird inflexibility after being able to organise broadcasts of every game previously, is just damaging, tbh. To think that in 2020 this is a situation that can actually happen is bizarre. The BT/Sky/Amazon, too, three broadcasters who should be worried about piracy, basically just opening the door up to illegal streaming in the league's home territory. Baffling.

 

I think the clubs need to step up on this. They have a responsibility to try and resolve this issue. The broadcasters have shown their contempt for us fans with this decision, clubs need to make every effort. And do you know what, if nothing can be resolved, I'd like to think (HA!) the clubs and the Premier League would never forget this inflexibility when it comes round to the next TV contract.