What if the Premier League has its own streaming service : "Premflix"

The Boy

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Wow, that insane money.
If it were to happen (a big if) it would mean the income per PL club could go from an average of 135 million a season at the moment to almost 1 billion per season. Brighton could buy Mbappe!
 

Sandikan

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Did Netflix stop people going to the cinema?

The big difference for the Premier League from this, is that they'd start to see revenue from the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who are watching their content illegally around the world each weekend.

It would also be infinitely better for the consumer.
That's a bit of a dreadful analogy, as netflix isn't on at the same time as films are released.
And you can watch films anywhere. not one specific place

I agree with the rest though.

If you could pay say £50 and watch every game of your team, with quality picture and commentary, everyone would do that rather than unreliable streams.
 

Sandikan

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If it were to happen (a big if) it would mean the income per PL club could go from an average of 135 million a season at the moment to almost 1 billion per season. Brighton could buy Mbappe!
Could you imagine. We'd be after average players costing 300m, instead of 80m.

You'd still get fans paying their £40 a ticket, insistent that they "pay the player's wages", when they probably haven't done since 1998
 

The Boy

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They totally wouldn't, as it's armchair fans who would watch, not the people who go to games.
Agree with this for prem matches, but the EFL clubs are worried that it would hit their gates, it's a fair point, would as many fans go out and watch Forest Green vs Walsall if Man Utd vs Liverpool was on telly at the same time. The smaller clubs absolutely rely on gate receipts to keep themselves afloat.
 

roonster09

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If it were to happen (a big if) it would mean the income per PL club could go from an average of 135 million a season at the moment to almost 1 billion per season. Brighton could buy Mbappe!
Yeah but that sounds like a dream than reality. Players earning million per week will be seen as underpaid :D
 

The Boy

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Yeah but that sounds like a dream than reality. Players earning million per week will be seen as underpaid :D
Yup and we'd probably quite quickly see the first billion pound player! Watch the video though it's quite convincing, one thing it is right about is that football on TV won't be around much longer it will all be streamed, if the PL don't do it directly themselves, techs like Apple FB and Amazon are all waiting in the wings
 

roonster09

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Yup and we'd probably quite quickly see the first billion pound player! Watch the video though it's quite convincing, one thing it is right about is that football on TV won't be around much longer it will all be streamed, if the PL don't do it directly themselves, techs like Apple FB and Amazon are all waiting in the wings
Hopefully they won't. In India we pay around 2-4 pounds per month and get PL, Bundesliga, Serie A, CL, Europa league, FA cup, league cup on TV. Earlier La liga, Dutch league and French league was also part of the package now its not.

Apart from this we get all other coverages too from other sports and all this for less 2-4 pounds per month. With these streaming services, we might have to pay lot more.

Also we have apps where we pay around 4 pounds per year and get PL, Bundesliga online.
 

RobinLFC

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They totally wouldn't, as it's armchair fans who would watch, not the people who go to games.
Even if it does, I'd gladly travel to the UK once a month to watch Liverpool at home or against a London-based team if seats would become more widely available, and I know countless others who'd do the same in a heartbeat. I bet there's plenty of people who'd immediately fill the void if (PL) attendance drops because of a streaming service.
 

Sky1981

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This is the million dollar question, what happens if PL take all of the rights for themselves and PL can only be watched from their own OTT?
Will you still subscribing to that? or you add another 10-15 quid for PL.
Some will pay. But most countries broadcaster will probably pays as much as they pay now. Anything more they'll simply says feck you.

The fa will need to invest hundreds of milluons in infrastructure to have premflix live across the globe. Do they? It's more than a few server in china streaming content. You'd need backoffice, representative in many countries and the whole 9 yard. I doubt it'll be cheaper.

Tv owner alreadt have those in place they can share the cost. Fa dont
 

diarm

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That's a bit of a dreadful analogy, as netflix isn't on at the same time as films are released.
And you can watch films anywhere. not one specific place

I agree with the rest though.

If you could pay say £50 and watch every game of your team, with quality picture and commentary, everyone would do that rather than unreliable streams.
The cinema analogy was poor enough alright, but it's no worse than this stupid kick off times argument.

Pretty much every premier league game is accessible somewhere online these days, more often than not illegally.
 

Rhyme Animal

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I've said for years that this should be the way it works.

Get with the times FFS. Scrambling around for streams for free when I'd much rather pay up to £150 quid a year for a solid stream of 3-5 matches each gameweek.

Make it so.
 

2mufc0

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Make it happen.
 

11101

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Because they're greedy and lazy. They can get a guaranteed $4 billion per year without lifting a finger, why would they go to all the trouble of providing a streaming service that would start them off at $0. It's long been clear the fan experience doesnt feature even the slightest in these calculations.
 

diarm

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If the Premier League doesn't do this, La Liga or Serie A will and they'll steal a march on us.

There's a romantic attachment to great old Italian sides like Milan, Juve, Inter, Fiorentina, Lazio, Roma, Parma etc for people of my generation and older. If a modern and forward thinking tv deal put those sides back at the top of European football, I'd gladly pay €10-15 to stream the games.

The Premier League was perfectly timed to exploit the explosion of television broadcasting in football. It could just as easily be left behind by allowing another league to position itself quicker for the next big jump.
 

Sandikan

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Agree with this for prem matches, but the EFL clubs are worried that it would hit their gates, it's a fair point, would as many fans go out and watch Forest Green vs Walsall if Man Utd vs Liverpool was on telly at the same time. The smaller clubs absolutely rely on gate receipts to keep themselves afloat.
It's interesting, as through Ifollow, you can now watch your lower league club on midweeks, and non saturdays.
I love it, as I've watched about 6-8 Wycombe games this way this season.

It actually benefits the club, as they can get £8 of the £10 fee, even for aways!
And typically, those nutters who want to travel 200miles each way midweek, will still go.
 

Sandikan

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Even if it does, I'd gladly travel to the UK once a month to watch Liverpool at home or against a London-based team if seats would become more widely available, and I know countless others who'd do the same in a heartbeat. I bet there's plenty of people who'd immediately fill the void if (PL) attendance drops because of a streaming service.
For the huge clubs, there will always be a massive fan base.

It's more the Watford / Bournemouth types who haven't got them.
 

rojo81

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Seria A did it last season with something called Serie A pass and as far as i know it was a failure.
 

Florida Man

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They won’t, not in the UK anyway the clubs would be well against it as gate receipts would suffer.
Perhaps they could do something that would incentivize proper supporters to attend matches. Cheaper prices, larger allocations for standing and singing, etc. to bring back the atmosphere. Pass off all the expenses to streaming users instead so the pigs can eat too.
 

redshaw

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Agree with this for prem matches, but the EFL clubs are worried that it would hit their gates, it's a fair point, would as many fans go out and watch Forest Green vs Walsall if Man Utd vs Liverpool was on telly at the same time. The smaller clubs absolutely rely on gate receipts to keep themselves afloat.
Not a good example as United vs Liverpool has always and would still be moved to a different time slot. More like would people go and watch so and so in the EFL if United were playing Watford and Liverpool playing Brighton at 3:00pm on some PL streaming service.

Don't think the impact would be that great as there's not as many Sat 3pm fixtures for big clubs.
 
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Panther

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Would a PL streaming service showing all the games not create an incentive for clubs to actually lower ticket prices to ensure that they still sell out tickets, or close to sell out.
 

youngrell

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Previous to reading the points set on in this thread by @DBT85, I could never understand why the PL we’re not already doing this. DBT makes good points about the risk involved compared to the current module but I still think the reward outweighs it.

I’ve always imagined a tiered sub system where you could pay for:
  • Just your team’s games
  • All games
  • Single games or match weeks
Every game would be available to you if you had the full sub so you could watch them right after you finished watching one live, or just on demand like Netflix and there would also be the whole PL back catalogue to keep you interested between games/during international breaks or even in the summer to keep subs going.

It would be a great service and I would sign up no hesitation.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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If a game isn't on TV, or if someone doesn't have the right TV package, they're streaming it illegally. If the PL think people are sitting around waiting for Match of the Day to come on to watch their team, they are incredibly disconnected from just how much people want to watch this sport.

They are just tossing money away by not monetizing and legitimising the streaming that is happening. Get in on it. Make it stable and reliable and people will pay what it takes.

Having coverage split between 3 broadcasters is a rip off as well. Cut out the middleman and broadcast your own sport yourself, like the Big 4 American sports are doing and have been for years.
 

DBT85

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Some will pay. But most countries broadcaster will probably pays as much as they pay now. Anything more they'll simply says feck you.

The fa will need to invest hundreds of milluons in infrastructure to have premflix live across the globe. Do they? It's more than a few server in china streaming content. You'd need backoffice, representative in many countries and the whole 9 yard. I doubt it'll be cheaper.
The FA wouldn't have to do anything as it would be a PL venture and as I've already said, the PL already has every game being directed, produced and broadcast worldwide. Yes, investment would be needed to bring in all the kit to encode things for a streaming service (consider that for amazon alone, we encode every game in 4khdr, 4k, 1080hdr and 1080. A main and a backup of each. AND it is all done exactly the same at another site. Effectively every game is encoded 16 times! to be sure there is a backup of the backup of the backup just in case)

The facility that much of this is done at (the same place as VAR is done fwiw), would just need to allocate the appropriate rack space and have the PL open the cheque book for a miniscule sum by PL standards. IIRC the Amazon kit installed in our building were it paid for outright was something like £15m, since its all AWs stuff Amazon probably gave themselves a discount.

That same kit has actually been encoding every game all season just to make sure it works properly. Yes there would be other expenses in setting up an appropriate network to handle the huge volumes of traffic if it were available worldwide and so on, but its by no means insurmountable. Its not even 1% of the reason it's not happened yet.

I've said for years that this should be the way it works.

Get with the times FFS. Scrambling around for streams for free when I'd much rather pay up to £150 quid a year for a solid stream of 3-5 matches each gameweek.

Make it so.
If it were to happen I wouldn't expect it to be less than £300 for a year. Hell they might even not allow you to unsub like Netflix and stuff do.

It's interesting, as through Ifollow, you can now watch your lower league club on midweeks, and non saturdays.
I love it, as I've watched about 6-8 Wycombe games this way this season.

It actually benefits the club, as they can get £8 of the £10 fee, even for aways!
And typically, those nutters who want to travel 200miles each way midweek, will still go.
The note here (as I've also directed L1 and L2 games for ifollow) is that its £10 PER GAME to watch. For L1 and L2 football. Yet somehow they get enough people to pay it to make it worthwhile. Why the feck would the PL look at than and go "ahh yeah lets do it for a tenner lads". They know the value of their product. If Newport County can get people paying £10 for one game the PL will want at least double.

The prices of live sport cannot be compared at all to things like Netflix and Amazon or Disney+. Its a whole other ball game (no pun intended)

Previous to reading the points set on in this thread by @DBT85, I could never understand why the PL we’re not already doing this. DBT makes good points about the risk involved compared to the current module but I still think the reward outweighs it.

I’ve always imagined a tiered sub system where you could pay for:
  • Just your team’s games
  • All games
  • Single games or match weeks
Every game would be available to you if you had the full sub so you could watch them right after you finished watching one live, or just on demand like Netflix and there would also be the whole PL back catalogue to keep you interested between games/during international breaks or even in the summer to keep subs going.

It would be a great service and I would sign up no hesitation.
It could absolutely be a great service, all those old games are available (we play them reguarly) as well as loads of other stuff. Literally the entire channel is PL only. News, Fantasy Football, Soccerbox, review show etc. As I said, most of you watching a stream or just on tv elsewhere in the world are watching the signal leaving my desk.

But that service will come at a cost that I think people are being naive with.

I can't ever see the PL teams breaking up and having individual packages though, they could have done it multiple times over the last 20 years and always refused. You either get a game for X, maybe a month for Y or the whole year for Z. Still need to pay for CL and FA cup and Europa League and stuff though.

The idea that suddenly the PL does a Premflix and everyones woes of multiple subs dies out is a dream.

If a game isn't on TV, or if someone doesn't have the right TV package, they're streaming it illegally. If the PL think people are sitting around waiting for Match of the Day to come on to watch their team, they are incredibly disconnected from just how much people want to watch this sport.

They are just tossing money away by not monetizing and legitimising the streaming that is happening. Get in on it. Make it stable and reliable and people will pay what it takes.

Having coverage split between 3 broadcasters is a rip off as well. Cut out the middleman and broadcast your own sport yourself, like the Big 4 American sports are doing and have been for years.
Even with their own service illegal streams and iptv will still be huge. Why pay £300 a year if you can pay £40 for a main and backup IPTV that has basically everything from everywhere. People still pirate netflix shows, amazon shows, etc etc.

Whatever happens, you'd still need 2 or 3 subs to see every game anyway as less and less will be on the free to air channels.
If a game isn't on TV, or if someone doesn't have the right TV package, they're streaming it illegally. If the PL think people are sitting around waiting for Match of the Day to come on to watch their team, they are incredibly disconnected from just how much people want to watch this sport.

They are just tossing money away by not monetizing and legitimising the streaming that is happening. Get in on it. Make it stable and reliable and people will pay what it takes.

Having coverage split between 3 broadcasters is a rip off as well. Cut out the middleman and broadcast your own sport yourself, like the Big 4 American sports are doing and have been for years.
Isn't the NFL on Fox, NBC, CBS and some others too?
 

Green_Red

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I think the premier league need to do this or risk other leagues getting the edge on them globally by offering the service first.

Beyond all the comments about how difficult it would be to do it is bollox. It's not that hard. Hell, they already have access to the technology because they are already streaming in other countries.
 

baskinginthesun

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If a game isn't on TV, or if someone doesn't have the right TV package, they're streaming it illegally. If the PL think people are sitting around waiting for Match of the Day to come on to watch their team, they are incredibly disconnected from just how much people want to watch this sport.

They are just tossing money away by not monetizing and legitimising the streaming that is happening. Get in on it. Make it stable and reliable and people will pay what it takes.

Having coverage split between 3 broadcasters is a rip off as well. Cut out the middleman and broadcast your own sport yourself, like the Big 4 American sports are doing and have been for years.
.....and the American sports still get fans showing up to the stadiums no matter how many live games are on TV. What's more, is the American sports have 2 midweek games and 1 weekend game, generally.
 

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Obviously it's a great idea, cutting out the middle man is extremely lucrative. It's not a coincidence everyone is going that route.

You don't even need to build a company. When you take back the rights, everyone out of a job producing the games for others are suddenly fighting with each other to produce the games for you.
 

Beans

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.....and the American sports still get fans showing up to the stadiums no matter how many live games are on TV. What's more, is the American sports have 2 midweek games and 1 weekend game, generally.
I believe games are blacked out within like 80 miles of the stadium, unless it's a sellout. Even though NBA league pass, in the NBA at least. Used to be that way in hand egg but it's been ages since I watched.
 

stevoc

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It would be interesting as it would pit the premiership against the EFL. It's the EFL that worry attendances would suffer if the 3pm blackout wasn't observed. They recently made SkyBet stop streaming Bundesliga and Serie A matches inbetween 3 and 5pm on a Saturday saying it was blatantly flouting the 3pm blackout rule.

I didn't realise it was all football and not just British football that was banned from being televised or streamed at that time. The only match that was ever allowed to be broadcast at 3pm on a Saturday in the UK was the FA Cup final but that's now been moved to 5pm. It's also why the final day of the season when all the matches are played at the same time, they're played on a Sunday to avoid the rule!
I'm sure if they had their way all sports and entertainment would be banned from being shown between 3-5pm on a saturday.
 

baskinginthesun

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I believe games are blacked out within like 80 miles of the stadium, unless it's a sellout. Even though NBA league pass, in the NBA at least. Used to be that way in hand egg but it's been ages since I watched.
I didn't know that if still true. Even with the league pass, they still black it out?
 

P-Ro

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I don't like the name Premflix. It should be Amazon Preme.
 

Beans

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According to the video at the top of this if they sold directly world wide they could theoretically make 24 billion quid a year compared to the 3 billion they make at the moment
Or put another way, while putting on all the games, the clubs are getting a mere 13% of the worldwide revenue from their broadcast!

That 21 billion Is quite a motivation, and that's for one year! They'd be incompetent cowards not to jump at this opportunity.
 

Beans

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I didn't know that if still true. Even with the league pass, they still black it out?
They did when I signed up ages ago, unless it's a sellout. Couldn't watch Cavs even though was I in Columbus Ohio! I was literally like 79.5 miles from the stadium. But maybe not anymore.

My point really was just that blackouts could solve this issue of effecting stadium attendance.
 

baskinginthesun

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They did when I signed up ages ago, unless it's a sellout. Couldn't watch Cavs even though was I in Columbus Ohio! I was literally like 79.5 miles from the stadium. But maybe not anymore.

My point really was just that blackouts could solve this issue of effecting stadium attendance.
It would be difficult in England though. At least in America the next NBA team is probably 100 miles away. We have teams that are only a few miles from each other which could create issues.
 

bosnian_red

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Not really owned by the premier league but just get DAZN in Canada. We pay 150$ a year for the subscription, and you get every single premier league game for every team, you can replay them, you get highlight shows, preview shows, side spin offs like Gary Nevilles soccerbox, big match previews, and so on. We also get all Champions League games, all Europa League games, all Carabao Cup games, serie A, decent chunk of Championship games. Only don't have the FA Cup, and then Bundesligs, liga BBVA, and Ligue 1.

Then for other sports we get all NFL games, redzone, all the side shows, etc. Some other sports included.

Basically, come to Canada for the best sports packages.
 

iammemphis

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As someone who works for the PL broadcasting their shit worldwide, they won't do it.

They currently make like £10m per game every game broadcast, shared equally (ish) between clubs. That's just for the UK audience. The numbers that actually watch the games are not that high but it's paid for by every sky/bt subscriber, whether they pay for sports or not.

The PL has its own channel it has for about 6 years. We show the 3pm games on it too. Most of you watching anywhere other than the UK are watching it.

They like the current model because it makes money, contractually, for at least 3 years at a time. Doesn't matter who's winning, doesn't matter who's shit. They get paid regardless. If they decided to do premflix tomorrow it could be online by the start of next season (we already handle all of Amazon's PL coverage and the servers that go with it). The issue they have is they have no guarantee of how much money they'd make. Because subs can go up and down as the season goes.

It certainly wouldn't save you much over what you currentlyhhave to pay for sky or bt, and they'd never allow you to only pay for United games for example.
End thread.
 

George Owen

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Unless you have the rights for the 3 or 4 big leagues, it won't work.

Imagine paying for 3 or 4 different services to watch football. Nope. Specially when it's so easy to watch for free online.