Football - City Bid the Wrong Type of Sterling

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, JordanJH1993 said:

A surprise Man United voted against it, as Jose has continually said he would like the window to be shut as early as possible, and generally, he prefers his clubs to get business wrapped up as quickly as possible.

Not really. I'm sure Mourinho meant for an early closure across the board rather than just the premier league.

 

Quote

Sky Sports sources are reporting that Manchester United, Manchester City, Swansea, Crystal Palace, Watford and Burnley voted against it.

Burnley abstained for some reason.

[l2 0 5 5]

Faced with my first dilemma in buying NBC Sports Gold with Leicester/Chelsea this weekend. $50 one time buy for a season long subscription. Their site says each club has a minimum of 3 games on Gold.... The trend I see, lower shelf clubs are put on Gold with the big names being sprinkled in every now and then... God I hate to cave in and pay $50 to NBC. Fuck 'em for doing this, but I also don't want to miss the match. Any other US watchers face this issue yet? 

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

Faced with my first dilemma in buying NBC Sports Gold with Leicester/Chelsea this weekend. $50 one time buy for a season long subscription. Their site says each club has a minimum of 3 games on Gold.... The trend I see, lower shelf clubs are put on Gold with the big names being sprinkled in every now and then... God I hate to cave in and pay $50 to NBC. Fuck 'em for doing this, but I also don't want to miss the match. Any other US watchers face this issue yet? 

Not yet.  Liverpool's games have been broadcast so far but I'm sure some will get pushed to their other channels to drum up extra subscriptions. 

I've looked into LFCTV subscriptions again, which aren't badly priced but I would want to stream a HD picture to my TV rather than watch on my iPad. 

[Jordan La Cabra]

6 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

Faced with my first dilemma in buying NBC Sports Gold with Leicester/Chelsea this weekend. $50 one time buy for a season long subscription. Their site says each club has a minimum of 3 games on Gold.... The trend I see, lower shelf clubs are put on Gold with the big names being sprinkled in every now and then... God I hate to cave in and pay $50 to NBC. Fuck 'em for doing this, but I also don't want to miss the match. Any other US watchers face this issue yet? 

I thought that every single PL game from every game week is available for viewing on the sports networks in the United States?

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Not yet.  Liverpool's games have been broadcast so far but I'm sure some will get pushed to their other channels to drum up extra subscriptions. 

I've looked into LFCTV subscriptions again, which aren't badly priced but I would want to stream a HD picture to my TV rather than watch on my iPad. 

The official club channels don't actually show PL games live. I have Chelsea TV and their live coverage of the game is commentary without video. It is the same for the rest of the clubs that have a channel, I believe.

 

 

[Consigliere]

Looks like Ligue 1 is planning to follow the premier league in shutting the window before the start of the season. A decision is expected before the end of the year. IIRC, there were also rumblings in Germany for the window to be closed before the season starts. Juve's director general and Roma's sporting director have backed the premier leagues decision and hope that Serie A follows suit as well. If more leagues join the EPL then I could see UEFA making this mandatory across the board.

[The Wedge]

4 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

I thought that every single PL game from every game week is available for viewing on the sports networks in the United States?

Through last season I was able to watch every game on NBCSN's "Extra Time" with my Uverse subscription. The main games would be on NBCSN, NBC, and sometimes CNBC (usually when F1 was on at same time).  The Extra Time games would be on channels higher up the dial, but there they were.  We could catch Burnley v Bournemouth or Sunderland v Watford. 

Checking for these extra games during the first week in August and they weren't there.  I'll skip the gold pass.

[Jordan La Cabra]

Just now, The Wedge said:

Through last season I was able to watch every game on NBCSN's "Extra Time" with my Uverse subscription. The main games would be on NBCSN, NBC, and sometimes CNBC (usually when F1 was on at same time).  The Extra Time games would be on channels higher up the dial, but there they were.  We could catch Burnley v Bournemouth or Sunderland v Watford. 

Checking for these extra games during the first week in August and they weren't there.  I'll skip the gold pass.

If you don't mind me asking, how much would it cost to have a subscription that guaranteed you get to see every Premier League game available?

What's frustrating for us in the UK is that despite our close proximity to the Premier League, we get short changed by the Premier League, Sky Sports and BT Sports when it comes to viewing rights. Per weekend, there is, at most, five PL games available to watch live for us. That is if you are including Monday or Friday night fixture along with a potential Saturday 12.30pm K.O., Saturday 5.30pm K.O., Sunday 13.30pm K.O., and Sunday 16.00pm K.O.

For reasons that baffle me, there is a 'blackout' on coverage of 15.00pm K.O. PL games in the UK - the time that the bulk of the fixtures take place. Chelsea play Leicester at 15.00pm tomorrow, so inevitably I will miss that unless I try to stream it online, which I don't like doing, as it's behind live time and can cut off at any point.

For Sky Sports, I pay £30 per month and for BT Sports, I pay £25 per month. It isn't bad, as with Sky Sports we also get English Championship, League One, League Two, EFL Cup, Scottish Premier League, La Liga, International Qualifiers, Eredivise, MLS, Chinese SL (not that I watch any of the last three, tbh).  BT Sports is better value for money, as although it shows less PL games than Sky, it also shows every Champions League and Europa League fixture, while also showing FA Cup, Ligue 1, Serie A and Bundesliga, SPL, English National League and a few others.

To be honest, though, I'd rather not have access to all the other leagues that Sky and BT show in order to have every PL game available.

[polishgenius]

2 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

For reasons that baffle me, there is a 'blackout' on coverage of 15.00pm K.O. PL games in the UK - the time that the bulk of the fixtures take place.

It's to encourage people to go to their local games rather than watching the biggest ones on TV. Makes sense really.

The amusing thing to me is that it's not a '3pm kickoff' ban, it's a 'showing any football between 2.45 and 5.15 except for the FA cup final' ban and as a result La Liga games that kickoff at 5pm local time will have the first fifteen minutes lopped off in England. It's affected at least one classico that I can remember.

[MisterOJ]

21 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

If you don't mind me asking, how much would it cost to have a subscription that guaranteed you get to see every Premier League game available?

Nowadays, there's two ways to watch EPL games here in the US. There's the games broadcast on the regular TV channels (NBC, NBC Sports, and occasionally a third channel if NBS Sports has something like Formula 1 going on and can't broadcast a soccer match). Those will just cost you whatever your cable subscription is.

All the other games are streamed on NBC Sports Gold, and a subscription to that is $50 for the entire season. These are (for the most part) the less popular matches. All the big matches get put on regular television. But the $50 subscription fee only gets you the matches not broadcast on TV. To watch everything, you need to have your normal TV package that includes NBC Sports, etc., plus the $50 Gold subscription. 

ETA: This weekend, for example, on regular television we get:

City v. Liverpool

Arsenal v. Bournemouth 

Everton v. Spurs

Stoke v. United

Burnley v. Palace

and Swansea v. Newcastle

The matches on Gold that require the $50 subscription are:

Southampton v. Watford

Leicester v. Chelsea

Brighton v. West Brom

[The Wedge]

14 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

If you don't mind me asking, how much would it cost to have a subscription that guaranteed you get to see every Premier League game available?

Don't know.  It looks like there are three or four games a week that are part of the NBC Gold subscription for $50.  Checking the listings for the first four weeks, for someone who likes West Brom, it's probably a good deal.

The bigger clubs and matches are on the main channels that are part of most US cable/satellite packages. 

At any rate, the availability of PL in the US has turned me into a fan. I love waking up, pouring a coffee, and catching two or three matches before noon.

[Jordan La Cabra]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

It's to encourage people to go to their local games rather than watching the biggest ones on TV. Makes sense really.

The amusing thing to me is that it's not a '3pm kickoff' ban, it's a 'showing any football between 2.45 and 5.15 except for the FA cup final' ban and as a result La Liga games that kickoff at 5pm local time will have the first fifteen minutes lopped off in England. It's affected at least one classico that I can remember.

Yes, but then Sky and BT choose to show the 'biggest' ones on TV anyway. Any fixtures between members of the 'top 6' will be chosen for live TV. Then, as the season goes on, any games that are considered potential 'big' moments, will most definitely be shown. In the run in for the title last season, all Chelsea and Tottenham games were televised so that Sky or BT wouldn't miss out on showing the title clinching match.

It's easy to assume that any game is 'local' in the PL if you live in the UK or England, but that is far from the case. I live in Northern Ireland, so when I go to a Chelsea game, it costs me hundreds of pounds on travel and accommodation. And unless the TV fixtures have already been announced, I have to book to go to London from a Friday to a Tuesday, just in case the game is switched to Friday night or Monday night. I don't mind paying it, but it frustrates me that we still don't get every game available to view on TV.

In July, I noticed that the TV fixtures had been announced and Chelsea vs. Everton hadn't changed from Saturday 15.00pm to one of the TV slots. I found it strange, as it is a fixture that is always televised, so thinking it was on a Saturday at 15.00pm, I was going to try get tickets and fly over for it, but I was going on holiday to Portugal two days later, so my girlfriend and I thought against it, in the end. Turns out, just a few weeks before the game and after I had decided not to go, the game was changed to Sunday 13.30pm and wasn't even being shown on TV by Sky or BT. Sky, at the same time, were instead showing Stoke v WBA! What was the point in changing it if they weren't even going to televise it? So many fans would have planned their journey, paid flights, train tickets, accommodation in some cases around it being at 15.00pm on Saturday, only for the PL to screw them over by changing it to the next day and not even televise it.

Even for fans in England it's frustrating. Newcastle play Swansea at 16.00pm. That's a 13 hour round trip for Newcastle fans for a game on a Sunday afternoon. Could be worse, could be on a Monday night, but why not have that game on at 15.00pm on a Saturday, to give the Newcastle fans that work on a Monday a chance to go to the game.

The PL, Sky and BT don't give a damn about local fans.

And, yes, there was a Classico last season that was effected by the blackout period.

[Jordan La Cabra]

@The Wedge @MisterOJ, I am quite thankful that the US channels show practically every game, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stream the Chelsea games that aren't televised here.

The games on the streaming sites are usually being streamed from NBCSN. If it wasn't for NBCSN, I'd have to watch streams off of the likes of BEIN Sports etc that are in different languages, and unless you are at a live game, it's pretty weird watching a match without commentary lol. 

[polishgenius]

16 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Yes, but then Sky and BT choose to show the 'biggest' ones on TV anyway. Any fixtures between members of the 'top 6' will be chosen for live TV. Then, as the season goes on, any games that are considered potential 'big' moments, will most definitely be shown. In the run in for the title last season, all Chelsea and Tottenham games were televised so that Sky or BT wouldn't miss out on showing the title clinching match.

It's easy to assume that any game is 'local' in the PL if you live in the UK or England, but that is far from the case. I live in Northern Ireland, so when I go to a Chelsea game, it costs me hundreds of pounds on travel and accommodation. And unless the TV fixtures have already been announced, I have to book to go to London from a Friday to a Tuesday, just in case the game is switched to Friday night or Monday night. I don't mind paying it, but it frustrates me that we still don't get every game available to view on TV.

In July, I noticed that the TV fixtures had been announced and Chelsea vs. Everton hadn't changed from Saturday 15.00pm to one of the TV slots. I found it strange, as it is a fixture that is always televised, so thinking it was on a Saturday at 15.00pm, I was going to try get tickets and fly over for it, but I was going on holiday to Portugal two days later, so my girlfriend and I thought against it, in the end. Turns out, just a few weeks before the game and after I had decided not to go, the game was changed to Sunday 13.30pm and wasn't even being shown on TV by Sky or BT. Sky, at the same time, were instead showing Stoke v WBA! What was the point in changing it if they weren't even going to televise it? So many fans would have planned their journey, paid flights, train tickets, accommodation in some cases around it being at 15.00pm on Saturday, only for the PL to screw them over by changing it to the next day and not even televise it.

Even for fans in England it's frustrating. Newcastle play Swansea at 16.00pm. That's a 13 hour round trip for Newcastle fans for a game on a Sunday afternoon. Could be worse, could be on a Monday night, but why not have that game on at 15.00pm on a Saturday, to give the Newcastle fans that work on a Monday a chance to go to the game.

The PL, Sky and BT don't give a damn about local fans.

And, yes, there was a Classico last season that was effected by the blackout period.

All of that is true but I'm not sure how it does anything to refute the idea behind the blackout. The big teams and games aren't the ones that are going to lose live gate to their own televisation. The point is that when those games are on TV, smaller games (and I'm not just talking about PL, it's aimed all the way down the pyramid) are more likely to have people not turn up. Your difficulties, as frustrating as they are for you, are pretty much the whole idea- the point being that you might, and others will, decide that if you can't see the Chelsea/United/Liverpool/etc game, you might as well go and see a game at your nearest game instead. Obviously not that many people actually do, but for a lot of teams even a few is going to be a big deal.

I assume the change in the Everton game had to do with their Europa League commitments. That's shitty planning, but it isn't Sky's fault or anything.

[Jordan La Cabra]

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

All of that is true but I'm not sure how it does anything to refute the idea behind the blackout. The big teams and games aren't the ones that are going to lose live gate to their own televisation. The point is that when those games are on TV, smaller games (and I'm not just talking about PL, it's aimed all the way down the pyramid) are more likely to have people not turn up. Your difficulties, as frustrating as they are for you, are pretty much the whole idea- the point being that you might, and others will, decide that if you can't see the Chelsea/United/Liverpool/etc game, you might as well go and see a game at your nearest game instead. Obviously not that many people actually do, but for a lot of teams even a few is going to be a big deal.

I assume the change in the Everton game had to do with their Europa League commitments. That's shitty planning, but it isn't Sky's fault or anything.

Yeah, I do see what they are trying to do. But when people are most likely to do what I do and try to stream the Chelsea games that aren't televised rather than go down to watch Ballymena United play in the NIFL Premiership, you'd think the Premier League, with its love of money, would just make some kind of subscription available to make all Premier League games available. I doubt many PL clubs would object, as they are mostly sold out every week, so I can't see every game being available to view on TV changing that. But, yes, it may mean that smaller local clubs would take some kind of hit, by people staying at home or going to a bar to watch the 15.00pm K.O. rather than paying to going down to the local team on a Saturday afternoon, if their local team isn't a PL team.

Funnily enough, the Chelsea vs Nottingham Forest game on September 20th hadn't sold out. For some reason, I quite like Nottingham Forest; I see them as my 'Championship team'. I was going to get two tickets for my girlfriend and me, but looking up the flights and accommodation, it was coming to £300. I had to ask myself 'Is it really worth paying that amount of money to go see a third round League (Carabao) Cup game?' All in all, it's not really lol.

 

[The Winged Shadow]

I ended up subscribing to LFC GO TV as it is ridiculously expensive to get EPL in Australia. I never watch the games live, due to most of the games being after midnight, and the games are available to stream on demand when I wake up or get back from work. Since the only games I care about are Liverpool ones anyway, it seemed like a good fit.

Then I usually youtube the highlights of other interesting games. If i really want to watch a non-liverpool game, say a tight Classico or London/Manchester derbies, i find other super duper legit ways

In other news, super nervous about Liverpool's game against City. It will probably be another tight game with Pool sitting back a bit and countering. But City has made some significant signings that could be the difference between last season's matches and this season. Last year, the fullbacks weren't as dangerous as this year's will be which could be the main difference. Both are fast and could probably track back to cover Mane and Salah.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

I thought that every single PL game from every game week is available for viewing on the sports networks in the United States?

For the last three seasons we had 100% broadcast coverage either live on one of NBC's basic channels or else streaming online from NBC at no additional cost to cable subscribers.  It was great. 

Unfortunately this season they have added a higher tier subscription service to cover several of the games each weekend, especially the smaller teams not selected for the live broadcast time slots in the UK.  Big teams will still see a large % of their games on broadcast TV, but there will be enough of the big team games too pushed to the next tier to drive subscriptions. 

Having established a following for the PL, gotten them used to watching whatever match they want, and now paying ever higher fees to the PL for broadcast rights, it's not a surprise that NBC wants to start squeezing some extra revenue.  If fans collectively resist the additional subscription and skip those games, NBC will have to reconsider.  If you're a microeconomist, this is an interesting experiment in a company trying to assess the demand curve of its customers by adding tiers.  The efficient strategy for NBC is always to get customers to self-select into pricing tiers by their own demand.  The way for customers to avoid higher prices is to not play along and just skip games until NBC decides that it needs one price/tier for everyone, which will be relatively low cost to satisfy the mass market. 

[Iskaral Pust]

8 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

The official club channels don't actually show PL games live. I have Chelsea TV and their live coverage of the game is commentary without video. It is the same for the rest of the clubs that have a channel, I believe.

Not really a problem for me since I'm six hours behind GMT anyway, although technically LFCTV and others should broadcast live to IP addresses outside of the UK (the broadcast ban doesn't apply), but I imagine the PL wants to limit the potential for live pirate streams, which is fair enough. 

It's pretty easy for me to avoid hearing scores for weekend games and just watch the delayed broadcast as though it is live.  

[Consigliere]

3 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

In other news, super nervous about Liverpool's game against City. It will probably be another tight game with Pool sitting back a bit and countering. But City has made some significant signings that could be the difference between last season's matches and this season. Last year, the fullbacks weren't as dangerous as this year's will be which could be the main difference. Both are fast and could probably track back to cover Mane and Salah.

The way City plays - both fullbacks/wing-backs pushed high up the field, a high defensive line, Fernandinho the only midfielder sitting back and providing defensive cover, dodgy CBs and Kompany out with an injury - should suit Liverpool very well. There should be plenty of space down the flanks and in behind for Salah and Mane to exploit. The big difference is that City are likely to provide much more of an attacking threat than Arsenal did so it will be interesting to see how Liverpool's defence holds up. Plus, Liverpool's record against the top six/seven since Klopp took over is impeccable.

[Philokles]

If the 3 o'clock kick-offs not being on UK TV is that big of an issue, move the standard time for PL matches to 3pm on a Sunday. Lower league clubs need that source of revenue to survive. Especially since the Premier League has been working hard to undermine its viability for years now.

[Jordan La Cabra]

4 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

In other news, super nervous about Liverpool's game against City. It will probably be another tight game with Pool sitting back a bit and countering. But City has made some significant signings that could be the difference between last season's matches and this season. Last year, the fullbacks weren't as dangerous as this year's will be which could be the main difference. Both are fast and could probably track back to cover Mane and Salah.

If I was either Mane or Salah, I'd far rather come up against Man City's full backs this season. The likes of Walker, Mendy and Danilo are so attacking and will leave loads of space in behind to exploit.

I really fancy Liverpool to win tomorrow. Their record against Man City is decent and the way they tore Arsenal apart was seriously impressive.

Not so long ago the idea Liverpool were going to play Man City without Coutinho in the squad would have been enough to make you doubt them, but their midfield has been so good this season without him that he no longer seems like a big loss.