What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

We've seen reports in recent weeks that SKY's Premiership viewing figures are down as are BT Sports Champions League viewing figures. What's causing this? There seems to be many factors mentioned but thought I'd ask the good people of Cable Forum why you think people aren't tuning in. Is it cost? Illegal streaming? Or possibly over saturation? I've just had a look at http://www.live-footballontv.com/ there's 37 live games of football on TV over the next 2 days! You can literally watch live football, depending on your subcription, from when you wake up on Saturday and Sunday right through to bedtime.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I only care about watching the team I follow, and the frustrating rules about not showing certain matches mean I'm only able to watch those games 'illegally' though how illegal it is is still up to some dispute. That obviously makes people wise to the idea of just watching games that way all the time. Kodi boxes have made it so easy now and sports packages aren't exactly cheap or getting cheaper so I'm not surprised people are just going online or using cardsharing skyboxes or kodi.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I care mostly about the premier league and when you have to pay for Sky Sports + BTSport to only see half of the games it's ridiculous, especially when they cost more than the base TV, Broadband and phone package. Pretty much every other country outside of the UK pay less than we do for ALL of the games.

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It's an interesting point. I used to watch all things football but now just watch Rangers and Scotland when they're playing. Always liked the idea of being able to buy a TV season ticket for your own team. Many rules would need to change to allow this, and your team would obviously be nervous in terms of dropped home game ticket sales, but there would have to be a compromise. Maybe a TV season ticket that allows you to watch all of your teams away games plus cup fixtures for say £10.00 per month. I'd be up for that.

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Because they're overpaid, highly strung prettyboys and they always look worse in an Olympic year after some proper sporting endeavour has been on the tv?

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Depending on who you get your TV service from, SKY Sports and BT Sports in HD can cost you nearly £60 per month. Most football fans could get a season ticket for their team for less. A season ticket for Rangers (my team) starts from £295.00. A season ticket, travel costs, something to eat and drink plus a programme for each game would still work out cheaper than subscribing to BT Sport and SKY Sports.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

The popularity of media boxes such as those that run Kodi, plus the boxes like the Zgemma that allow a user to view everything a paying SKY / Virgin subscriber views and more.

These boxes are not illegal, they are available all over the net, just don't use them to view SKY or Virgin PPV content.

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Its inevitable the bubble will burst although I wouldnt say its happened yet, but year on year inflation busting costs are not sustainable. Sky have been managing it somewhat by increasing their lower packages a lot to subsidise their higher costs so people who just pay for the entertainment pack e.g. subsidise sky sports.

illegal streaming is typically of poor quality unless you stream directly from NBC or EPL streaming services (the latter I think very few people do), those who watch streams on the net and on kodi are probably doing so as a last resort due to not having the means to pay for sky sports.

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It is pricey to watch that is for sure but personally l think too many are jumping to quick conclusions based on nowhere near enough solid continuous evidence.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I think that there needs to be proper competition in this market and this doesn't happen with the current model of match bundles. Like you've said above to get all the games you need to subscribe to both Sky Sports and BT Sports. I think it would be better (for the consumer not the Premier League, UEFA, etc) if Sky, BT and any other provider who wished to buy football rights could show all the games. This would then be genuine competition as both Sky, BT and whoever else would be showing the same matches giving us consumers a genuine choice of who to subscribe too based on price, quality of service, etc.

Also, no disrespect to some of the teams in the Premier League as they are there on merit, but a lot of former 'big' teams are now in the Football League meaning there are now more less supported teams in the Premier League. This also means there are also a fair few matches that, unless you support the clubs, probably don't entice big viewing figures (Stoke v West Brom, Swansea v Watford, Hull v Burnley, etc).

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The archaic ruling by the FA that 3pm kick offs cannot be televised in the UK is a major factor for illegal streaming.
This afternoon we have:

Manchester United v Burnley
Tottenham Hotspur v Leicester City
West Bromwich Albion v Manchester City
Middlesbrough v Bournemouth
Watford v Hull City

Which no one in the UK can watch legally today. Yet free (or paid for) illegal streams in HD and with full english commentary are easily available for all these games?
I'd happily pay to see my team play on a UK sports channel if it was a 3pm kick off but guess what I'll be doing instead.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Not likely to happen but ,

I'd like the Premier League to sell its product itself. Options to subscribe direct with them for online/connected devices with options such as follow your team or complete access.

The Premier league to have its own TV channels which are offered across all pay tv platforms allowing everyone equal access.

---------- Post added at 09:57 ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 ----------

Currently 78% have come to the same conclusion I'd said only a week or two back.;)

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

And you think they would offer that at a reasonable price MM?.

---------- Post added at 10:00 ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 ----------

Then your influence and reach is stronger then l thought.;)

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

They could certainly do it cheaper than it currently costs to watch all that , as I say they won't do because at the moment they are receiving bucket loads of cash from Sky and BT but how long can they go on paying those types of sums ?

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Well let me pose the question back to you MM as you are quite a bit more knowledgeable then l and that is how long do you think they will continue to fork out the cash for the rights.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I agree, the NFL have game pass the quality is great! The only down side is that they don't show Sky games and the playoffs live. Hopefully in the future the NFL will feel confident enough not to do exclusive deal with Sky and then I will dump Sky Sports immediately.
The Premier League have more than enough resources to go down the same route IMO.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I think both will still bid I don't however think we'll see the high increases we've seen between previous rights.

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If they are asking why myself and many, many others were made to pay for BT Sports but never watch it, it's simple isn't it?

We didn't want it as we don't watch sports!

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i think all the options are valid, different reasons for different people

i do think the 3pm blackout rule is slightly archaic though

i'm not sure an armchair man u (just an example) fan would go and watch their local team today just because the man u game isnt on tv, they would find a stream or just do something else and watch match of the day

---------- Post added at 12:51 ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 ----------

I understand el clasico is a Saturday 3pm game soon, this will be the only country where it isn't shown live

And if it was shown live, I'm sure it wouldn't stop people who were going to a game from going anyway

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

of course yep, I forgot to mention the obvious fact that many games are only aired overseas so people have no choice.

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The current position is utter madness. People should be able to watch any Premiership match of their choice on TV. I don't buy the argument that 3 pm screenings would impact significantly on attendances at football stadiums. You cannot recreate that electric atmosphere that you get with actually attending a football match by sitting in front of the telly.

It's the same with TV shows. If the powers that be deny access to large audiences by restricting content so severely, they only have themselves to blame when people decide to see what they want to see anyway by alternative means.

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Premiership is as dull as ditch water, imported players, imported fans. stupid amounts of money. People are seeing through it. My local non league team are now getting 4 figure attendances, instead of the 3 figures they used to get, maybe people are working out where the better value and entertainment is (ie not on your tv)

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There were some great comments on the Guardian article on this and they backed up what your saying.

There just isn't a sense of community any more or any sort of affinity with the players or teams.

I've got Sky Sports but i haven't watched a game this year, i just seem to have fallen out of love with the game as it seems to be turning into a non-contact sport. Couple all that with the blatant cheating that goes on and i just can't be bothered with it anymore.

I used to take holidays from work when England were playing but the half-hearted efforts the players seem to put in for the National team convinced me i shouldn't even bother watching them.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

My God, you seem to be paying an awful lot for a batch of channels you no longer watch!

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

He's the same as you then :D

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Ha ha, i have a 50% off deal and i watch the NFL :)

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

its a fairly weak premier league to be honest. A lot of smaller clubs have been promoted over the last few years (fair play to them) but they dont have a big fanbase to really bring in the eyes both at the ground and to the tv.

for example tonight it was stoke vs swansea. At no point did i want to watch that. Its a nothing game.

Big teams are in lower leagues where they have less games on tv. for example newcastle, forest, leeds, sheff wed, birmingham are all big teams who would attract more viewers.

Bournemouth are a small club, Hull really dont bring anything to the table and watford seem to be a sort of generic london club (there are far too many london clubs currently)

champions league tv viewership can be explained by the fact that man utd and liverpool arent in the competition. They would a ton of viewership both in this country and around the world.

The casual viewer wont watch tottenham vs someone. Tottenham fans would. The neutral fan would watch liverpool or man utd vs someone. Purely either out of intrigue or to hope they lose but it'd still get more viewers.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

This. Rugby is my game and I can't stand football, but...

Via TV-XL (or Full-House or whatever it's now called) I get the Premiership and 50% of European games included. Since a few months I've had Sky Sports, mainly for the England internationals but it also means the other half of the European games are covered. Compared to Premiership & International match tickets, I consider it a fair deal overall - but certainly not cheap and I do feel sorry for those people who can't afford the pay-sports channels.

However - I often shudder at what the same would cost via other providers, i.e. having to pay for BT.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

As far as l am concerned Sky / BT have put the price out of proportion to watch Sports on TV.

It makes me laugh when they companies pay silly money for Sports package's. I am totally mad on football on TV. But Sky /BT can reduce the price if they really wanted too. But the main factor is WE the customer pay the increased price each time each time. And they know that WE will pay it.

Its like Scottish Football, without the Celtic old firm games on Scottish football isn't worth watching as you know who will win the title. Before the game starts. And Sky don't invest as much as they do with the SPL

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I'm only really interested in the Cricket on Sky. Bangladesh isn't an attractive away fixture to attend personally. No way I'd pay to watch it though. If you have a friend/relative that has Sky, hooking a laptop up to the TV and streaming via Sky Go is a doddle -picture is surprisingly good too.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Greed!

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I stopped subscribing to Sky Sports a few years ago and put the money into taking my kids to watch local clubs. Although thankfully my boys genuinely enjoyed going to my club's (St Johnstone) games due to the two Dundee teams

a) being rubbish
b) not providing as good an experience for kids.

It's much more enjoyable paying my £16 at the gate (which includes entry for me and my two boys) and enjoying a day out with them than watching games on the telly. So if our schedule allows it (in around the constant stream of birthday parties and my wife's hospital rota) I tend to just take my boys to a live game.

I do still enjoy watching the odd game through the week on BT but I won't miss it when I downgrade....my elder two will soon be only enough to be taking to weeknight games.

Sky Sports had me as a customer but their high prices pushed me out and I won't be going back, I've moved on.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Totally agree Mike , I currently have Sky Sports but I would never pay the full price for it. I don't pay for BT and to be honest can easily live without it. I can watch it for 6 months but won't bother after that.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I have to pay for BT Sport and no-one in this house watches any sports! :mad:

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

It will eventually crumble down, more and more people are finding out overseas customers pay less and get "all" the games.

The so called competition here only serves to make the consumer pay more, e.g. when BT got some of the rights sky didnt reduce the price to reflect they had less games, they actually did the usual annual price rise. But when sky were allowed to bid for all the uk rights, the extra premier league channel was free to sky sports subscribers.

Likewise free to air CL games that were on itv are now gone, now on BT, and sky also lost the CL. So CL fans who pay for sky now have to also pay for BT sport.

Is clearly not sustainable as we will eventually get to the point it will cost £100 just for the sports channels, and income inflation is nowhere near at the level of home entertainment inflation.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

As I've said previously, prices will only continue to rise as long as people are prepared to pay silly money.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Just thought I'd revisit this thread after a change in my own viewing habits recently. One of the options I gave in the original poll was "Milleniums following the games on social media" which was only selected twice.

I don't have SKY Sports or BT Sport due to family and work commitments. I rarely have the chance to watch a live game at weekends so a subscription to either or both is almost pointless for me.

At the weekend Rangers played Celtic. I was home watching my son whilst my wife worked. I listened to the game on the radio in the background as we played. As the goals started to pour in I searched social media to see if I catch videos of the action. To my delight I found beIN Sport Australia were Tweeting out short videos, lasting between 30 seconds to 50 second, as key events played out during the game. All the goals, near misses, meaty challenges etc... In total they Tweeted 17 videos from the game as it happened. All in excellent picture quality and totally legal. It appears they do this whenever they are showing a game live. They did it the other night posting 23 videos during Roma vs. Lazio and they're doing it again tonight during the Real Madrid game.

I can see why sport coverage is getting more popular on Social Media. I found the combination of listening to the Old Firm game on radio, with regular video clips of the action on Twitter pretty decent. There wasn't a big delay between goals and videos of the goals being Tweeted by beIn Sport, roughly a minute.

This won't be for everyone but to a certain extent it fits in with my circumstances. More than happy to give it another go in future.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Just tried that and it's not allowing me to watch the video from the Real Madrid game now. I can view the tweets but the video is rights restricted.

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That's strange. It allowed me to watch the videos whilst the game was happening but not now:confused:

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

It appears Twitter is moving into video
https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/02/twitt...ideo-partners/

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Am I missing something - why do you have to pay for BT Sport?

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

They showed clips of all the key moments of tonight's Juventus game. All the clips worked fine for me during the 90 mins. Maybe it's after the finishes they geo-block their videos? That's 3 games in a row I've been able to watch without issue. Must admit I like it. It's about 5 to 7 mins worth of highlights as the game is being played.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

The Premiership is vacuous crap. Foreign players, foreign managers, supporters that don't go to games or have any connection to the cities they 'support'. People have seen through it. Back to basics , go and see your local non league team ( ultra ultra HD, assuming you're wearing your specs), sod the telly and subscriptions.

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I do enjoy going to see my local team with my Dad. The ground is just around the corner and it's only £5.00 to get in, or free after half time. The pies are great at only £1.00 plus there's a pub across the road serving pints from £2.50.

Forget professional football. My most vivid and fond memory was when our local team played at Ibrox stadium in 1984. 4 generations of my family at the game plus about 3/4 of the town! Amazing day that still gets spoken of fondly today in the local pubs.

https://youtu.be/R_naBbHu_AU

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I have a similar story. When I was a teenager, my Grandad used to take me to watch my local team (Grimsby Town) when they were in the old first division. There was the one trip to Wembley to watch them win the Auto Windscreens Trophy final.

I don't think I'd go now by myself, as I used to go with my Grandad and it was a way of spending time in his company, and a bonding experience between us.

However, I don't think any TV Football experience will surpass those memories of watching Clive Mendonca, Paul Groves, John Mcdermott (all club legends now) et al. from the Pontoon Stand. So, if you can go with a relative or someone to support your local team, I definitely recommend it too.

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Can't agree more. I'm amazed how well know and liked my Dad is locally. He's a fairly quiet guy who never goes out but wouldn't say no to anyone looking for a hand. When we go to the games he's approached buy guys from 18 to 80 wanting to talk to him. People he's worked beside, old friends, friends of the family etc... It's amazing to hear stories at the game, and the pub afterwards, about him going back decades that I had no idea about. It's an amazing experience that fills me with pride. You don't get that sitting in front of the idiot box watching Soccer Saturday!

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Vacuous generalisation!

For my sins my family come from SW London and I was born within a few miles from Stamford Bridge, I am the fourth generation of our family brought up with an irrational love of Chelsea Football Club (we're now into the sixth generation lol).

Even though I only live 9 or so miles away from the stadium work and family commitments as well as finances mean I only get to attend 3 or 4 games a season these days, however I'd far rather watch my team on TV that I have supported irrationally for 45 plus years when I can't go to games than attend the local non league crapola!

Before the foreign invasion English football wasn't really English anyway, most teams were full of Scottish, Welsh and Irish players, I seem to remember one of Liverpool's European Cup winning teams didn't contain one English player!

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

From The Times a few years back. I'd have loved to have seen how The Sun reported it (if they dared)

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Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I bet the poll was 90% female, lol...........:)

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

I don't generally do the Premier League being a Forest Fan but what I do catch fairly regularly is MOTD2 on Sunday nights.
On Sunday Phil Neville and Martin Keown were basically saying the Premier League has become a bit dull and the quality has dropped.
They watched the Madrid derby last week and that is the pinnacle of quality as they see it and could on see David De Gea making either team out of the whole of the league.

We have the most money but that is not being reflected on the quality which is basically what they are saying.
I'm not saying there isn't the odd exciting game in the Premier League but the Championship for excitement and unexpected results is where it's at. The technique and quality maybe not so much nut for a neutral I think it wins every time.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

Personally, I am fed up of watching grown men paid tens/hundreds of thousands a week when

1) most can only kick with one foot

2) most roll around in feigned agony when barely touched in an attempt to get opponents sent off.

Very few, if any, would last 5 minutes in a game of rugby.

Re: What is hitting football viewing figures the most?
 

This looks an interesting service for ex-pats living abroad. I would certainly subscribe to this to watch Forest if I lived overseas

http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/i...-overseas-fans