Watching football legally in the UK

duffer

Sensible and not a complete jerk like most oppo's
Scout
Joined
Jun 24, 2004
Messages
50,137
Location
Chelsea (the saviours of football) fan.
I still think my idea from 2017 is the solution:
Would kinda screw over match going fans to benefit the armchair crew*. Getting home from an away game late on a Saturday night after a few beers is a different kettle of fish to doing it on a Sunday!

*of which I am a member these days.
 

GeniusIdiot

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Dec 15, 2013
Messages
42
I see what your saying.

The problem with moving all premier league games to Sunday’s would mean Champs league games could not take place on a Tuesday. They would have to all take place on a Wednesday which UEFA probably wouldn’t agree to as they want to spread it over two days for more TV rights money and bigger number of viewers.

At the moment any team that plays on a Tuesday european game always plays on the Saturday before it.
I'm sure they can play Saturday Midday or late kickoff. Its just Saturday 3pm that is banned.
 

manutddjw

Full Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Messages
3,695
Location
Canada
I’m not too tech savvy but what I would suggest for everyone is if it’s possible, use a VPN and register as a Canadian to get DAZN. For $20 CAD, you get every Premier League, League Cup, Champions League, Europa League, Serie A and if its your thing NFL games along with other sports.
 

Rado_N

Yaaas Broncos!
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
110,905
Location
Manchester
I see what your saying.

The problem with moving all premier league games to Sunday’s would mean Champs league games could not take place on a Tuesday. They would have to all take place on a Wednesday which UEFA probably wouldn’t agree to as they want to spread it over two days for more TV rights money and bigger number of viewers.

At the moment any team that plays on a Tuesday european game always plays on the Saturday before it.
Those teams with European games can play before/after the blackout on a Saturday just like we have televised games there now.

If you’re playing in Europe the following Tuesday you can play at 12:30 on ybeSaturday before.

Would kinda screw over match going fans to benefit the armchair crew*. Getting home from an away game late on a Saturday night after a few beers is a different kettle of fish to doing it on a Sunday!

*of which I am a member these days.
True but matches already fall on Sundays and Mondays sometimes and there could still be early/late Saturday games as well to mix it up.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
It's incredibly hard to get tickets for Utd games except for a weekday lesser team game.
This hasn't been true for years pal.
Last year City tickets on a Sunday were available on our own redcafe ticket thread for goodness sake!
 

Chief123

Full Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
12,789
This hasn't been true for years pal.
Last year City tickets on a Sunday were available on our own redcafe ticket thread for goodness sake!
Whenever I’ve tried to get tickets for the big games via the official route they have always been sold out. Of course getting them through unofficial routes is always possible if the price is right. That’s the case with all clubs and match tickets.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
I still think my idea from 2017 is the solution:
This is fine for armchair fans, but would be horrible for regular game goers.

Back late on a Sunday and into work knackered the next day. Dreadful.

Messes Europe up a bit too, where you wouldn't be able to have any English teams ever play on a Tuesday.
 

Rado_N

Yaaas Broncos!
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
110,905
Location
Manchester
This is fine for armchair fans, but would be horrible for regular game goers.

Back late on a Sunday and into work knackered the next day. Dreadful.

Messes Europe up a bit too, where you wouldn't be able to have any English teams ever play on a Tuesday.
see above :)
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
Whenever I’ve tried to get tickets for the big games via the official route they have always been sold out. Of course getting them through unofficial routes is always possible if the price is right. That’s the case with all clubs and match tickets.
"Big games" is probably the key there.
Pretty much most games outside of those you'll be able to get on the website simply with a membership.
 

stevoc

Full Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2011
Messages
19,836
This hasn't been true for years pal.
Last year City tickets on a Sunday were available on our own redcafe ticket thread for goodness sake!
True but theres more than 75,000 United fans in the UK and i suspect most of them would want to watch the match. So it's not like they could all go if they chose to.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
First time I ever picked up a couple of month passes for Sky and BT, versus watching "elsewhere", and I think i'll struggle to go back to that "elsewhere" approach now!

The difference in quality is incredible.

So now i'm at the point a lot of you lot are, where you're happy to have a way to pay for 100% of games, but frustrated you probably only get 60%?

The covid business has probably brought the day all games will be live forward though.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
True but theres more than 75,000 United fans in the UK and i suspect most of them would want to watch the match. So it's not like they could all go if they chose to.
Of course, we're a globally supported club.
But I don't think anyone truly can say they "can't" get to 1 game a season if they really want to.
 

Wumminator

The Qatar Pounder
Joined
May 8, 2008
Messages
22,933
Location
Obertans #1 fan.
I like the rule.
Last year when United weren’t on, I went to Vale, Oldham, Stockport and even Exeter to watch a game. If they were on I’d either go the game or watch on a stream.
 

RedStarUnited

Full Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
8,083
The law says they can't show live footy on TV.

The worry is people would rather stay at home to watch Barca v Real Madrid than go out to watch Exeter v Colchester.
The local/small clubs thing....Why dont they change their kick off times? if all smaller league games all kicked off at 12:30 and all PL games kickoffs start at 4pm, and you can still have the later kickoffs too (5:30pm and 7pm for example). Isnt this the best for everyone involved?

This way you can go watch your local team and still get home in time to catch the big teams on the telly. PL clubs especially ones in Europe hate the 12:30 kick off anyway, so that pleases them too.
 

stevoc

Full Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2011
Messages
19,836
Of course, we're a globally supported club.
But I don't think anyone truly can say they "can't" get to 1 game a season if they really want to.
Of course but it would be more than one United game thats not televised in the UK every season though. Probably more like 5-10 games at least maybe more some seasons.

Plus it depends on how far you live from OT and what your disposable income is. Personally I’m in NI and before the kids came along I used to get over 5-10 times a year. And on average that would cost me probably around £300-400 per trip when you factor in Flights-Hotel-Taxis-Food-Drink and of course a ticket. Yeah obviously that would be much less for people in Britain who could travel up and back home the same day.

But as I said earlier if every United fan in the U.K. wanted to go to a match at OT they couldn’t.
 

TrustInOle

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Messages
2,464
Location
Manchester
Don't mean to belittle the effect this could have, as I have no idea of the implications, but why can't they reorganise lower league games to not conflict with top flight fixtures?

Quick example, without much thought I'll admit, but couldn't Saturday and Sundays be split, so before 3pm each day, lower league plays, after 3pm top flight play?
 

Wumminator

The Qatar Pounder
Joined
May 8, 2008
Messages
22,933
Location
Obertans #1 fan.
The local/small clubs thing....Why dont they change their kick off times? if all smaller league games all kicked off at 12:30 and all PL games kickoffs start at 4pm, and you can still have the later kickoffs too (5:30pm and 7pm for example). Isnt this the best for everyone involved?

This way you can go watch your local team and still get home in time to catch the big teams on the telly. PL clubs especially ones in Europe hate the 12:30 kick off anyway, so that pleases them too.
Oh sound, let’s feck over the match day experience for hundreds of thousands of fans across the country to help the PL clubs in Europe.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
The local/small clubs thing....Why dont they change their kick off times? if all smaller league games all kicked off at 12:30 and all PL games kickoffs start at 4pm, and you can still have the later kickoffs too (5:30pm and 7pm for example). Isnt this the best for everyone involved?

This way you can go watch your local team and still get home in time to catch the big teams on the telly. PL clubs especially ones in Europe hate the 12:30 kick off anyway, so that pleases them too.
Because 3pm saturday is one of the few traditions left in football.

Some clubs have changed it. I remember Tranmere moved to Friday nights. But it obviously didn't work that well. Plus other clubs would despise you for making their fans have to travel long distance that time in the week.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
Oh sound, let’s feck over the match day experience for hundreds of thousands of fans across the country to help the PL clubs in Europe.
Someone gets it.

You can tell quite clearly on here who actually has experience of smaller clubs / going to games, and who is primarily an armchair fan can't you :lol:

One of the things these "just move all games" types forget it that you play home AND away. So you wouldn't be getting home for these tv games anyway a lot of the time.
 

duffer

Sensible and not a complete jerk like most oppo's
Scout
Joined
Jun 24, 2004
Messages
50,137
Location
Chelsea (the saviours of football) fan.
The local/small clubs thing....Why dont they change their kick off times? if all smaller league games all kicked off at 12:30 and all PL games kickoffs start at 4pm, and you can still have the later kickoffs too (5:30pm and 7pm for example). Isnt this the best for everyone involved?

This way you can go watch your local team and still get home in time to catch the big teams on the telly. PL clubs especially ones in Europe hate the 12:30 kick off anyway, so that pleases them too.
Because there is never a reasonable time where another game is on the telly. 3pm is the only time they know they don't have to compete with televised footy from around the world.
 

neilv93

Full Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2018
Messages
383
Location
Bristol
https://www.sportbible.com/football...te-a-netflix-style-streaming-service-20200209

Seemingly the PL CEO is already looking into a Netflix-style service, dubbed 'PremFlix', but just chose not to progress that idea during the last rounds of TV rights selling (circa 2018/19). The linked article estimates the average monthly cost is £76 for all of the UK sports like Sky and BT. You'd have to think even if PL charged £50/m people would still pay it - I would!
 

RedStarUnited

Full Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
8,083
I still think my idea from 2017 is the solution:

What the PL should do is scrap 3pm Saturday games completely and move the standard PL fixture spot to Sunday, thus avoiding the blackout and leaving Saturday 3pm slots to Championship and below.

They should then completely cut Sky and BT out of the equation and sell their product directly to us the consumers via an online based service - think Netflix for football.

This can be a subscription service with apps for smart TVs, mobile phones, tablets, PS/Xbox etc or via web browser, with every single game available to watch live.

They could sell this subscription for a lower price per month than we are currently made to fork out for Sky and BT Sport and by cutting out the middleman the PL still bring in more money overall, and I'd also wager more people would take up the option to subscribe when they get every game via one source for a more reasonable price.

Netflix has shown that people are willing to pay for content when they're not being ripped off, and the NFL has shown this model to work with their Game Pass system.

PL needs to embrace the technology available in digital media, everybody wins. Except Sky and BT, they lose, which is another bonus.
Its down to money, The FA probably are probably too scared to make the investment to make this work. The main costs will come down to two thing;

- Equipment: All the cameras etc around the grounds I presume are owned and operated by Sky/BT. So either the PL pays Sky to operate them, or they get their own in.
- IT: To make the streaming model work, considerable amount of work and money will have to be thrown at this.. Amazon who are the market leader in Cloud technology (AWS) struggled to stream games and that was a very small amount of games. The PL will have to handle a larger amount of games with more viewers.

Sadly the current model is simple and very beneficial to the FA. They don't have to worry about how the product is delivered to the customer/fans. Its Sky/BT/Amazon who are having to spend more and more money to improve the quality of what we see, the PL doesn't care about 4K or how smooth the streams are.
 

Chief123

Full Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
12,789
Of course, we're a globally supported club.
But I don't think anyone truly can say they "can't" get to 1 game a season if they really want to.
But the issue is as fans we want to watch every game. So the majority of us would have to miss out as all of us can’t attend every game due to capacity.
 

Chipper

Adulterer.
Joined
Oct 25, 2017
Messages
5,467
I think both 3pm games on tv or even just moving all PL games outside of that slot would have some impact on the smaller clubs.

It's not going make any difference to some who straight up supports a smaller club, they're not going to abandon their team. It's more those with a second club in the lower reaches and those people who just like football without necessarily a strong love for any teams. I imagine some of both these groups be a little less prone to go to a match if they can watch more at home.

Don't think either of those groups of people are huge in numbers but every extra bit of money made or lost matters to clubs down there.

Do we/should we care about theses clubs might be the question. Some might say that if they can't compete then tough, they have an inferior product etc. Not what I'd think personally, I like that we have a thriving lower league scene in England and wouldn't want to potentially hurt it plus it's not like the way things are done currently has prohibited the PL from becoming successful.

Maybe they could put all the games on tv, but also bung the lower league sides some extra money? What sort of formulas you'd have to come up with to arrive at a fair amount is beyond me. There'd be immediate impact and long term. Some f ns not going to watch their second team play as much or ever again in the short term becomes generations who never think to have such a team in the first place if they can watch all the PL games on telly.
 

Rolandofgilead

Trigger Happy Priest Killer
Scout
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
21,508
Location
Bob Lucas Stadium
Supports
Weymouth
It’s a farcical rule and I hope it gets changed. I should be able to watch my team in this day and age. Having said that I can’t see the rule changing as most football fans who support lower teams seem to enjoy it. All my friends enjoy the whole ‘Saturday Saturday’ thing and whenever I bring up this comment they say they like it the way it is.
Well from a personal point of view for an away game now I get between 600 and 800 listeners. If the law were to change and allow television stations to broadcast games in that time frame I suspect my listener base would go down.

Lower and non league football clubs rely on boots through the turnstiles and the floating fans would in some cases not spend £15/16 on a National league game if they can stay in and choose whichever Premier league game they feel like.

Currently I'm of the opinion that changing this particular law would see many more league one teams and below to go out of business.
 

Rolandofgilead

Trigger Happy Priest Killer
Scout
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
21,508
Location
Bob Lucas Stadium
Supports
Weymouth
Don't mean to belittle the effect this could have, as I have no idea of the implications, but why can't they reorganise lower league games to not conflict with top flight fixtures?

Quick example, without much thought I'll admit, but couldn't Saturday and Sundays be split, so before 3pm each day, lower league plays, after 3pm top flight play?
So you want to make the teams with the lowest possible budget to play games at say 12pm and potentially travel 300 miles for the game?

Move the Premier league games. The league and clubs couldn't give a flying feck about the fans anyway.
 

TrustInOle

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Messages
2,464
Location
Manchester
So you want to make the teams with the lowest possible budget to play games at say 12pm and potentially travel 300 miles for the game?

Move the Premier league games. The league and clubs couldn't give a flying feck about the fans anyway.
I'm not saying I want anything doing? As I stated, I don't know the ins and outs of everything, was a simple question really? Switch top flight and lower leagues around in my comment and I'm still asking the same question? Why can't they organise games that don't clash with eachother?

There is surely away around this in this day an age?
 

Rolandofgilead

Trigger Happy Priest Killer
Scout
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
21,508
Location
Bob Lucas Stadium
Supports
Weymouth
I'm not saying I want anything doing? As I stated, I don't know the ins and outs of everything, was a simple question really? Switch top flight and lower leagues around in my comment and I'm still asking the same question? Why can't they organise games that don't clash with eachother?

There is surely away around this in this day an age?
Personally id move the premier league to the Sunday. I think that would be the best solution all round.

As I said it wouldng effect the premier league in the slightest as they or the clubs couldn't care less about the fans. They just want as much money as possible.
 

TrustInOle

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Messages
2,464
Location
Manchester
Personally id move the premier league to the Sunday. I think that would be the best solution all round.

As I said it wouldng effect the premier league in the slightest as they or the clubs couldn't care less about the fans. They just want as much money as possible.
I would have no problem with this. Saturday, league one and below. Sunday, championship and above.

I've been to plenty away games on a late Sunday and feel the after affect Monday morning in work, but that's part of being a fan and supporter.
 

Rolandofgilead

Trigger Happy Priest Killer
Scout
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
21,508
Location
Bob Lucas Stadium
Supports
Weymouth
I would have no problem with this. Saturday, league one and below. Sunday, championship and above.

I've been to plenty away games on a late Sunday and feel the after affect Monday morning in work, but that's part of being a fan and supporter.
I'd keep the championship on the Saturday too. Or if the premier league run a streaming service, which is clearly the next logical step, then move the chsmpionship to sunday and sky can pick up tv rights to subsidise losing the prem.
 

sugar_kane

Full Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2013
Messages
3,424
The lower league thing is a bit daft because most fans going to watch the smaller clubs are proper fans who will go watch their team regardless of whether the PL is on telly at 3pm.

Conversely, the type of armchair fan who wants to session watching the PL at home is fairly unlikely to take a random punt on going to watch Carlisle vs. Grimsby (for example) on a Saturday afternoon.

Also (maybe slightly unfair) since when did the PL give a shit about lower league teams, when compared to their own financial interests?
 

TrustInOle

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Messages
2,464
Location
Manchester
I'd keep the championship on the Saturday too. Or if the premier league run a streaming service, which is clearly the next logical step, then move the chsmpionship to sunday and sky can pick up tv rights to subsidise losing the prem.
The more we talk, the more this makes sense. I feel the lower leagues would gain vastly more interest aswell from this, being that most football fans would want some form of football during a saturday, which could open pathways for more lower league TV deals?
 

Dan_F

Full Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
10,317
Personally id move the premier league to the Sunday. I think that would be the best solution all round.

As I said it wouldng effect the premier league in the slightest as they or the clubs couldn't care less about the fans. They just want as much money as possible.
They don’t even need to go that far. Just cancel the 3pm Premier League games altogether. You can still have about 8 different match slots per weekend, if you take into account Friday, Saturday and Monday nights.

It would be really shit for away fans in the Premier League, but how often do we play 3pm on a Saturday anyway.
 

duffer

Sensible and not a complete jerk like most oppo's
Scout
Joined
Jun 24, 2004
Messages
50,137
Location
Chelsea (the saviours of football) fan.
They don’t even need to go that far. Just cancel the 3pm Premier League games altogether. You can still have about 8 different match slots per weekend, if you take into account Friday, Saturday and Monday nights.

It would be really shit for away fans in the Premier League, but how often do we play 3pm on a Saturday anyway.
That's because you're always televised in the UK!
 

stevoc

Full Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2011
Messages
19,836
It’s a law that will either eventually be removed and you’ll be able to stream all games legally. Or it will get to the point where the vast majority of fans will know how to stream games over the next 10-15 years. Rendering the blackout pointless.

I don’t know the solution to ensure lower league teams don’t suffer. Whether it’s a subsidy passed down to make up for any potential lost revenue or moving the kickoff times around. Or a combination.

But I reckon it’s something the football league should actively be looking into and trying to get ahead of to protect their members.
 

Dan_F

Full Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
10,317
That's because you're always televised in the UK!
I know. I can’t imagine it’s too different for any of the top clubs. Although last year would have been increased for us, as we were playing Thursday/Sunday due to the Europa.