EPL Talk » Sky Sports

Carling Offer Fans More Personal Cup Final

Paul Bestall — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:27:27 +0000

So the countdown to this years Carling Cup Final enters the final week of tension as Tottenham fans nervously await Sundays final, whilst Manchester United’s supporters will be as calm as anything. This year though, Carling have decided to give up 32 minutes of digital perimeter board advertising to allow supporters to create their own banners to be displayed.

I doubt Carling couldn’t find sponsors for the boards in the time they’ve given up to allow the fans banners to be displayed, the game is shown live in several countries, so anyone wanting to reach the football fans of three continents can do so a lot cheaper than sponsoring the Champions League or F.A. Cup final. It’s been developing as a more fan orientated final over the last few years, with scarfs, wands and flags being given away before the game.

The 32 minutes will be split into two 16 minute busts and fans are allowed to send a design in through Carlings website to be in for a chance of having their banner displayed throughout the game. The 100 banners that are deemed the best will be displayed. I think this is a fantastic idea and really allows fans a chance to be more involved in the course of the game. One banner will even be displayed in the dressing rooms for both teams before, giving added kudos for any fan wanting to send a message to their beloved players.

Whilst the League Cup final is classed as secondary to the F.A.Cup Final, it certainly gives us a far better game than any recent F.A. Cup Final has delivered in the last few years. The atmosphere seems more raucous, the fans seem more involved, the fireworks and celebrations seem a little less restrained and it seems to be the final that rewards the fan more than the F.A. Cup does. There always seems to be too much riding on the F.A. Cup and teams seem to be wanting not to lose it more than actually trying to win it these days. With this also being the last League Cup Final solely on Sky Sports in the UK, no doubt they’ll be hoping it matches the last 3 or 4 years too before coverage becomes shared with the BBC next season. The League Cup Final tends to give us a more open and attacking game and I hope we’ll be rewarded with another cracking match.

Whilst I appreciate the lack of interest from some of the bigger clubs, it still pulls in decent crowds as it allows some fans an opportunity to watch their team when they may be unable to attend league fixtures. Most clubs charge considerable less in the early rounds and promote themselves as fan friendly events more than just football matches.

It’s the kind of thing more clubs should do, especially on non televised games. Gone are the days of quickly scrolling messages in small graphics being displayed on a scoreboard in a far flung corner of the ground. Why not give up a digital board on each border to personalise the game even more for fans. Or do as Carling are and have a special period on all the boards displaying messages for fixed moments in the match.

To try and get your own banner shown on worldwide TV, use the link below:

http://www.carling.com/football/carlingcup/banners/

Question is, just how many marriage proposals will be screened around the world?

Why The Premier League Is Clueless About The Internet

The Gaffer — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:00:27 +0000

If you were to pick an industry which has been revolutionized by the explosion of the Internet, soccer would be it. The irony is that the authorities such as FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League had nothing to do with the sport’s success online. This was entirely a movement by the people, for the people.

Premier League officials would not probably admit it, but the league owes much of its global success to the World Wide Web. When the fledgling league began in 1992, the Internet wasn’t even a consideration. Satellite TV was the impetus, and it still continues to be a driving factor in 2009, understandably so due to the vast fortunes of revenue from TV money that is pumped into the 20 clubs. But the Internet was the Tipping Point that transformed a mere passing interest in English football into legions of cult fans around the world, spending their time becoming increasingly infatuated with the league thanks to hundreds of fan-created message forums and blogs. Satellite TV has been a enormous factor, but the role of the Internet has largely been overlooked by many, including mass media.

Trouble is, based on the imbecile actions of the Premier League thus far, it’s obvious the league has little understanding of how the Internet is changing and how it can generate massive sums of new revenue. They’re too blinded by the short-term benefits of TV license rights that total £1.782 billion for 2010-2013, and that’s just from the United Kingdom. As long as the Premier League continues to focus on the ritual, every three years, of collecting as much TV revenue as possible, the league, to its detriment, will miss out on the much bigger picture, how the Internet is revolutionizing the entertainment industry. And, let’s not kid ourselves, the Premier League is in the business of entertaining.

Rather than focusing on many of the inane decisions the Premier League is making to try to protect its rights, let’s fast forward to three years from now when the Premier League will next accept bids for the TV license rights to its matches. Here are a few examples of how the Internet will have changed most things we know today:

Television will be unlike anything we experience now. Most movies, TV shows and sport events will be experienced either on mobile devices, flat-screen monitors showing high-definition video streamed over the Internet, or sliver-thin wireless tablets that can be affixed to car dashboards, refrigerators or under desks at work.
Middle men, such as major music labels and movie companies, will be practically extinct. Why have middle men when you can get what you need directly from the source? Nine Inch Nails has already been a pioneer in the music business by changing the future of the industry. The question is, which soccer club will be the first to adopt similar marketing ideas as Trent Reznor?
The Premier League will be bigger and more profitable overseas than in England. TV revenues for the 2013-2016 seasons will be greater overseas than TV rights revenue generated from England. If the English public feel removed from the league today, they have no idea how much worse it’s going to get over the next few years.

These three cataclysmic changes — TV being experienced on the Internet, the Premier League being bigger overseas than in England and the extinction of the middle men — will mean that the Internet in 2013-2016 will be the be-all and end-all for the Premier League. Or at least it should be.

The decisions the Premier League take in the next few months when new media rights for the league will be sold around the world will have a enormous impact on the future strength of the world’s most popular sports league. Just this week in Germany, the Bundesliga announced a deal to provide live matches online via pay-per-view. The Premier League and the new media right holders better act fast and responsibly. Otherwise, it’ll find itself trying to catch up with the marketing mavens from the Bundesliga. The challenge for the Premier League, however, will be keeping the 20 clubs happy and not trying to overstep their boundaries by cannabalizing revenue that the clubs could earn themselves from streaming live matches via their websites. But the Premier League clubs can’t have their cake and eat it too. Just as the Premier League is able to generate massive sums of TV revenue by presenting itself as one unified force to TV companies instead of being fractious, the Premier League should be able to collectively generate more revenue from mobile rights instead of having each club fend for themselves.

But, the dilemma is that the Premier League, as of today, doesn’t have the vision or understanding of how to harness the Internet to generate massive amounts of new revenue even during an economic recession. The Premier League has hardly shown itself to be leaders in Internet marketing. Its website, while aesthetically pleasing, has no outlet for fans to congregate online and create a community. The Premier League isn’t investing in communicating with its followers on Twitter. Instead, the league has created a brochureware website and ends up giving the power to the clubs to do a much better job at marketing themselves and the league than the league can do itself.

ESPN Loses Premier League UK TV Rights Battle

The Gaffer — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:16:30 +0000

Breaking news: The Premier League has announced that out of the six TV packages available for bidding in the UK for the 2010-2013 seasons, Sky Sports won five of those packages with Setanta getting the sixth and final one. That means that ESPN’s attempt to bid on the rights ended in failure — in the UK, at least.

This is a huge win for Sky Sports who have increased their number of packages from four (for the 2007-2010 seasons) to five. Setanta Sports will be showing less games because they’ll be moving from two packages (2007-2010 seasons) to one. But the biggest loser is ESPN who despite a lot of the chatter about the Disney-owned company making an aggressive raid on rights to the UK EPL TV market ended up empty handed.

Now that we know who will own the UK TV rights for the Premier League for 2010-2013, the next step for the Premier League is to allow broadcasters to begin bidding on the US TV rights to the Premiership. We should expect to hear who wins that battle in 1-2 months from now. Stay tuned to EPL Talk for all of the latest developments.

Does ESPN Have What It Takes To Win UK Premier League TV Rights?

The Gaffer — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:43:39 +0000

In the next 24 hours, we’ll find out if the future of Premier League TV coverage will change forever. Sky Sports has already won the bids for the first four of six packages made available by the Premier League for TV coverage from 2010-2013 for an estimated £1.3 billion. By Thursday night, we’ll learn whether ESPN or Setanta Sports will capture the two remaining packages, or will win the bid for one of them if Sky Sports is able to extend its packages from four to five out of the six.

The decision will have a massive impact on Setanta Sports. Will the Irish broadcaster remain a force to be reckoned with in UK television, or will ESPN manage to squeeze in and land the remaining packages, which would send shockwaves around the world.

On Thursday, journalist Jamie Trecker wrote that the win for Sky Sports was a potential win for Fox Soccer Channel in the TV rights battle in the United States. I have to disagree wholeheartedly. The agreement in the UK has little to no influence on the bidding in the United States. The TV rights for the US will be decided after the UK bidding concludes. If ESPN wants to win the TV rights deal for coverage in the US, it has just as much of a chance of winning it as does Fox Soccer Channel or Setanta Sports USA.

What do you guys think? Who will win the bids to the final two TV packages in the UK? Click the comments link below and let us know.

Can The Arshavin Talk Finally Stop And Sky Clean up on UK Rights

Johnathan Starling — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:40:55 +0000

Well we know the Andrei Arshavin deal according to the Premier League is complete, but how much trouble was there in completing this deal?

It seems that lawyers had to be called in to make sure everything was in order as this deal was finally competed almost twenty-four hours after the deadline. What’s making this deal even more questionable is that reports are coming out that paperwork submitted to the FA post the five pm deadline had ‘small issues‘.

Now I’m pretty sure the FA and Premier League are going to continue to say this deal is valid, but I have just a few questions that I think need answering by the FA.

1) Since Arshavin was already in London on Monday, why was this deal green lighted for a post five pm completion other than the fact the fee wasn’t agreed upon?

2) So the FA are saying it’s okay to ratify a deal when forms aren’t completely filled out?

3) If this deal was for a club like Hull City, West Bromwich Albion, ect, would the FA had been so kind to green light the move?

While I will be so happy once this is all said and done, some serious questions need answering. Sadly, I don’t think we will get any of those answers. Again, we aren’t talking about this had the deadline simply been midnight.

So Sky Sports have won four of the six TV Rights packages for the 2010-2013 seasons. What is good news for the Premier League is their fears of having to take a pay cut on the rights in the UK are for naught. The deal Sky made for the four packages they have won will guarantee that with the other two packages, the sum of the packages will at least match what the current deal is. The only question about the last two packages is…will Setanta and ESPN partner on getting those last two packages?

Other Stories.
Frank Lampard’s red was rescinded. There’s a shock…not.

Here’s another one of Rafa’s crazy rants. This time about Robbie Keane. Hey Rafa, have you for one second stopped to ask yourself this question…did you properly know how to use Keane? It seems to me you were trying to jam the square peg into the round hole…it never works.

But Rory Smith of the Telegraph comes out in response of Rafa’s comments with a statement about the lack of options up front for Rafa should there be a single injury.

Could this be why Fulham got rid of Jimmy Bullard? Bullard’s only played one game for Hull City, and has already needed a knee scan.

So Sam Allardyce has made a promise to Roque Santa Cruz…keep Blackburn in the Premier League and you can go. I wonder if that’ll be motivation enough to start scoring the goals again.

Looks like Criag Gordon will have to be content until the summer with being Sunderland’s number two.

Nicky Butt will be staying at Newcastle United until the end of next season. I wonder if he’ll call it a day after that?