The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

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That stat about us being the 9th watched club in Europe and effectively the third biggest outside the Premier League top six, is not only staggering, but suggestive that we'd make even more money from selling indervidual rights.

What about a situation whereby we sell the rights to all games Sky don't cover?

[pauliewalnuts]

That stat about us being the 9th watched club in Europe and effectively the third biggest outside the Premier League top six, is not only staggering, but suggestive that we'd make even more money from selling indervidual rights.

What about a situation whereby we sell the rights to all games Sky don't cover?

Why would Sky accept that?

Sky are paying so much because they shared exclusivity with BT. If you then take that away by making all the other games available elsewhere, you massively reduce the appeal to the likes of Sky, and they will be prepared to pay much less.

Once something becomes less scarce, its price drops.

re individual rights, some clubs would do extremely well out of it - Liverpool, mostly, and that's why they've raised it a few times.

We'd probably do worse than we do now.

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By 2019 Sky may not be able to afford exclusivity.

[danno]

What I'd like to see is full coverage of away games, I think that could really work without impacting on attendances.

How do you define away matches, though?

What about Villa fans who live in Manchester and want to watch our matches there? They'd be shown as living in Britain's ninth biggest city, and therefore would struggle to suggest it is an away match for them.

Plus I also think people are assuming you can introduce more coverage via streaming and not have it impact on the price the standard TV rights would fetch. That wouldn't be the case.

I suppose what I had in mind was an AVTV type service, that only shows games that are away from Villa Park.

As for the TV rights issue, I think its a little bit like the sea change the music film industry is going through, fighting napster/kazaa/pirate bay is nowhere near as effective as creating a netflix a spotify etc instead.

[passport1]

Once the technology has arrived (which it has) it forces the issue.

[Percy McCarthy]

Streaming live games on the internet would not necessarily mean clubs selling rights individually. They could, and probably would, still negotiate collectively as they do now.

As selling individual club rights would probably only benefit two clubs, the other eighteen would be mad to go for that. Yes, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City would make more money, but relative to Man Utd and Liverpool they'd suffer.

In fact, the bulk of the Premier League could maybe even negotiate a more equitable settlement if they took the stance of eighteen versus two rather than five or six versus the rest.

What the bloke on Talksport was talking about was a much bigger sum for the same kind of thing that happens now, but from Google or Microsoft rather than Sky/BT.

Something for Randy to think about there I'd have thought.

[OCD]

Sky and BT just bid on packages that are made available by the Premier League. The PL could still have the existing tv packages as the priority then an on-demand service could allow people to buy other games on an individual basis. This would still be negotiated with the Premier League rather than individual clubs and would target the market that streaming sites were previously targeting. The analogy of replicating what the music industry is doing was a good one.

On AVTV, the website represents a big opportunity for whoever takes over to do a much better job and provide services that people want.

[Percy McCarthy]

Sky and BT just bid on packages that are made available by the Premier League. The PL could still have the existing tv packages as the priority then an on-demand service could allow people to buy other games on an individual basis. This would still be negotiated with the Premier League rather than individual clubs and would target the market that streaming sites were previously targeting.

Yes, but as the bloke on Talksport said, the real big money will come from cutting out the middleman (Sky/BT). And exclusivity.

[pauliewalnuts]

Sky and BT just bid on packages that are made available by the Premier League. The PL could still have the existing tv packages as the priority then an on-demand service could allow people to buy other games on an individual basis. This would still be negotiated with the Premier League rather than individual clubs and would target the market that streaming sites were previously targeting. The analogy of replicating what the music industry is doing was a good one.

That still affects the scarcity of the product which Sky is paying for, and therefore the price.

Also, you reference the music industry, but if you look at what has happened with streaming there, who is it that is complaining most about the way the money goes?

The artists.

[pauliewalnuts]

Once the technology has arrived (which it has) it forces the issue.

The technology isn't just about "it's cheaper, because you pay to stream things across the internet, rather than needing to fuck about with satellites", though.

What about the camera crews, pre and post production people, commentators etc etc at every PL ground? What about the getting the signal out of the ground and to wherever it is processed?

The people in the best position to film and broadcast a live sporting event and then stream it across the internet are still the people who broadcast it via satellites now.

[brian green]

Any news about the sale of the club? This weekend could see us safe and you might expect some hint of a move to swat Adams.

[Dante Lavelli]

La Liga is about to go on strike due to their TV deal.  As I understand it, the reason is because the clubs negotiated too much with La Liga rather than we the equivalent of the FA, so the FA are refusing to supply referees and the like.

The important, and surprising bit, is that even Barca and Madrid agreed to redistribute and shared the TV rights, presumably because they realised that their wealth was damaging the overall product.

[kippaxvilla2]

Any news about the sale of the club? This weekend could see us safe and you might expect some hint of a move to swat Adams.

Even if there was any truth to this rumour, surely at best he would be a stalking horse?  Or is that a stalking donkey in his case.  The Michael Neville of 2015 if you will.

[OCD]

Once the technology has arrived (which it has) it forces the issue.

The technology isn't just about "it's cheaper, because you pay to stream things across the internet, rather than needing to fuck about with satellites", though.

What about the camera crews, pre and post production people, commentators etc etc at every PL ground? What about the getting the signal out of the ground and to wherever it is processed?

The Premier League already do this and then provide the product in foreign terrorities, which is where illegal streams get their footage. The argument against providing this has always been that it would affect matchday attendances. That maybe the case but it seems like Premier League clubs now see this as a small sacrifice in order to bring in additional broadcasting money.

[pauliewalnuts]

Once the technology has arrived (which it has) it forces the issue.

The technology isn't just about "it's cheaper, because you pay to stream things across the internet, rather than needing to fuck about with satellites", though.

What about the camera crews, pre and post production people, commentators etc etc at every PL ground? What about the getting the signal out of the ground and to wherever it is processed?

The Premier League already do this and then provide the product in foreign terrorities, which is where illegal streams get their footage. The argument against providing this has always been that it would affect matchday attendances. That maybe the case but it seems like Premier League clubs now see this as a small sacrifice in order to bring in additional broadcasting money.

But that's the point - they're doing it abroad, not here. The people showing the matches abroad have to employ some form of geo-location control to stop people outside their territories viewing it. That works in both their favour (as they've paid to show the games, they want to make sure only their customers get them) and in the PL's favour, as it makes it easier to sell rights to countries one by one.

Of course, illegal streams can still be found by those who know where to look, but the key point is that they're illegal.

If you forget the impacting attendances thing, and look at the revenue, selling streaming rights to more matches here wouldn't just be a case of having the existing TV money and then a bit on top for the rights to stream matches over the internet.

If they tried to sell streaming to someone else - ie the likes of Facebook or whoever as mentioned previously - traight away Sky and BT would argue that the product they pay to have exclusive rights to (between themselves) is being devalued because now there are legal, easy ways to buy the product on the internet, too. The product becomes less scarce, less exclusive and therefore less valuable.

They could sell the rights to Sky themselves, but even then, I think it risks the equilibrium of what is currently a finely balanced market - extracting top dollar by not selling everything you have, ensuring that all teams get featured rather than just the "big" ones etc etc.