Why doesn't sky offer total pay-per-view packages - every game live

Black Belt Jones · January 17, 2013

Anyone know why the premiership hasn't gone the whole nine yards and let Sky (or whoever) offer every football match for pay-per-view? Like you would get a subscription package for every Everton home game or something like that.

Question is just out of curiosity really - not advocating for total armchair-ism. The prem isn't shy about pimping its product so wondering why it hasn't happened.
I guess the argument that it would decimate attendances is the main one - but would that really happen?

DanEFC92 · January 17, 2013

Anfield would be completely empty on matchdays.

Huyton Layne · January 17, 2013

Couldn't do it for just some teams and not others and there are a few teams that have terrible attendances as it is. Wigan would play in front of 20 people every week.

toffeejack · January 17, 2013

I would pay for everton matches when they had PPV, but i won't pay for ESPN for a year, i think PPV is a very good option and should be an addition of ESPN for people like me. Therefore people can have a choice of one or the other - everybody wins right? i doubt many (only fairly wealthy) would order ESPN just to watch their football team's 5/6 games per season

grandjoeblue · January 17, 2013

I remember they used to do this or something similar only 1 game a week though.

davek · January 17, 2013

Some day down the line - when the spoils from collective bargaining for tv rights are deemed not enough for the likes of United and Chelsea etc - this is exactly what will happen. Existing well tuned tv channels for some clubs are surely just harbingers of this? Maybe there's a technological barrier for clubs to go it alone atm right now too. I remember reading about this a while back. FSG sell Red Sox tv packages this way I seem to recall. I bet that's what they have in mind in the medium term (and what drew them in in the first place...it certainly wasn't building a new stadium anyway!)

johnnydawg68 · January 17, 2013

Directv does this for the NFL over here. You pay a fee and get every game. I don't know why they wouldn't do it for the PL.

johnnydawg68 · January 17, 2013

johnnydawg68 said:
Directv does this for the NFL over here. You pay a fee and get every game. I don't know why they wouldn't do it for the PL.

Actually they do it for every sport over here, NBA, MLB, MLS, NFL etc. It's kind of no brainer...I mean every Man U, City, Chelsea, and Arsenal game is televised over there right? I can't see them worrying about it hitting their attendance.

Goat · January 17, 2013

johnnydawg68 said:
Directv does this for the NFL over here. You pay a fee and get every game. I don't know why they wouldn't do it for the PL.

Cos if people could spend Â£5 to watch a game, Arsenal couldnt charge Â£62 a game.

It will never happen in this Country.

Black Belt Jones · January 17, 2013

Think clubs like Arsenal probably could tbh, and defo could if they set the price higher for pay for view.
Point is there must be an equation to be made between gate prices v pay-per view prices and overall profit, with the big clubs coming well out in front from the introduction of pay per view. Agree the smaller clubs could get hammered by it.

pfim · January 17, 2013

MoutsGoat said:
Cos if people could spend Â£5 to watch a game, Arsenal couldnt charge Â£62 a game.

I'm sure they could and would.

peteblue · January 17, 2013

davek said:
Some day down the line - when the spoils from collective bargaining for tv rights are deemed not enough for the likes of United and Chelsea etc - this is exactly what will happen. Existing well tuned tv channels for some clubs are surely just harbingers of this? Maybe there's a technological barrier for clubs to go it alone atm right now too. I remember reading about this a while back. FSG sell Red Sox tv packages this way I seem to recall. I bet that's what they have in mind in the medium term (and what drew them in in the first place...it certainly wasn't building a new stadium anyway!)

They'll build a TV transmission station before a new ground.....

wandyr79 · January 17, 2013

They would have to change the rule that they cannot show 3pm games live surely.

Personally, it wouldn't stop me going to the game as TV could never compare with being there in the ground.

noharmdone · January 17, 2013

An 'away' game season ticket, to view through the clubs website is where it will end up.

Too easy to watch a feed, that won't last much longer.

WA Toffee · January 18, 2013

We are very lucky here in Australia, every single game is shown live. And when there are 4 or 5 games all with a 3:00 kick off, they show all of them on viewers choice. Love the red button.

Only pain is when Everton are on a late kick off - can't be arsed sitting up till 3 or 4am