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Premier League own TV channel

Kingellesar

This is the way
May 2, 2005
8,706
9,209
As much as I like the idea of a netflix style subscription for premier league....we are still several years away from having a decent enough infrastructure in place for the whole of the UK to benefit.

One thing I wouldn't want to give up is 4k football.....it is a luxury and imagine trying to deal with millions of people streaming the game at the same time, not sure if it would be possible.
 

Mr Pink

SC Supporter
Aug 25, 2010
54,770
99,331
But if you could watch every game of your Club live on telly would it affect numbers going to the matches?
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
9,429
12,382
The premier league could become the global sports steaming platform.

The revenue generated from PremFlix as we've been calling it in the office, the sole place to see the biggest and most valuable league in the world could the revenue not just to enrich the premier league clubs but could use that revenue to outbid almost anyone for sporting rights. In theory every premier league club could generate revenue from La Liga, UCL, Copa Libertadores and so on.

Take a conservative initial take-up of 25 million global subs (Netflix 139 million, Amazon 100 million) at £14.99 a month would net £4.4 billion per annum pre tax. Obviously there are infrastructure costs associated with this but that is when you bring on a technical sponsor, like Alphabet to mitigate some of that.

Interesting.

I know that UEFA have got rules prohibiting 2 clubs with the same owner competing in the same competition.

Not sure if they're got similar regulations about TV companies owning clubs, etc, which this would pretty much be?

Wouldn't surprise me if they did.
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
9,429
12,382
But if you could watch every game of your Club live on telly would it affect numbers going to the matches?

Potentially.

Re. PL games, if the TV revenue totally dwarfed match-day revenue, then ticket prices could be lowered to next to nothing (£5 to £10 a game). Obviously PL clubs aren't going to do this if they can get away with it, so Netflix, Premflix, Amazon or whoever would have to come to an agreement with them on ticket prices to keep the attendance figures high; you won't want to stream games with have full stadiums and a quiet atmosphere.

Re. other clubs down the leagues, yeah it would affect attendances. That's why in my post above, I've said that the PL streaming rights need to pay hefty sums to these clubs in the black every season.

In reality, however, I doubt this would happen long-term. I think eventually someone is going to lift the 3pm rule and lots of clubs will go to the wall, only to come back as smaller 'Phoenix' clubs.
 

tommo84

Proud to be loud
Aug 15, 2005
6,120
11,100
Simon Jordan's comments are smart and I'd imagine echo discussions already held by the EPL. However there are a few mitigating factors which make it less simple than he makes out*.

1) Distribution - Unless we're all going to watch games our tablets etc the PL's own network would need other broadcasters to carry their channel as a means of distribution. If they followed the Netflix model they could get agreements with Amazon (firestick carries Netflix) and Sky and BT etc but each of those distributors would want to charge them for it (they won't go out of their way to assist what is essentially a huge rival to their own product, as Eleven Sports' struggles demonstrate). That eats into the profitability of such a scheme and, if the net result was similar to what they're already making from the various package deals with Sky and BT, this may be the reason why the EPL are happy to continue selling the rights to 3rd parties.

2) Jordan uses the NFL as the example that the EPL could and should follow. However he misses something vital in this comparison. The 32 teams who compete on the NFL only complete in the NFL. There is no American Football equivalent of the FA Cup, Carabao Cup or Champions League. The number of subscribers to Sky/BT are inflated by them holding the rights to other competitions, which the EPL would not have the rights to. This makes it difficult to accurately estimate how many UK subscribers a PLTV would get, and that makes it safer to stick with 3rd party broadcasters and the current model of selling the packages for a guaranteed sum of money.

3) Content - PLTV would need to make other content to boost subscriptions (e.g. fans of he NFL will be aware of shows like GMFB - a breakfast show on the NFL network. If you're not aware of it and don't like NFL still look it up just to discover Kay Adams!). Other 'products' that have set up their own networks have had to do the same (e.g. WWE Network). Creating that content costs money and the EPL might just not have the appetite for it (although the existence and current output by PLTV Productions suggests they would, and can do it well!).

4) The 3pm blackout. Just because that seems to be the obstacle to all sorts of progress being made in how football is televised over here.

5) Finally, as others have mentioned, the infrastructure for live streaming here probably doesn't support millions of us streaming the NLD on a Saturday luncthime. NFL Gamepass for its European customers has been beset by technical issues. If the EPL is watching everything the NFL does and using it as a model to follow, they'll be scared off of streaming their own product by the poor quality of the existing NFL Gamepass service.

*I'm no expert on any of this, so some/all of what I've written may be bollocks. But I thought I'd contribute as its an interesting concept.
 

CoopsieDeadpool

Well-Known Member
Jun 8, 2012
18,257
70,419
Loosely related to this, I guess. Why oh why hasn't Daniel Levy (I guess he'd be responsible for it) launched a THFC tv channel on Sky, like Man Utd, Chel$ki & the Scousers have, and show the youth games etc ?

I know there's the Spurs tv thing on the official site, but surely there's a chance of some pretty decent extra income by having an actual tv channel ourselves?

I think MUTV etc are around a fiver a month or something?

I recently had to give up Sky but it used to really frustrate me when I'd go through my Sky TV guide & see ChelseaTV showing something like Chelsea U23 v Tottenham U23, but couldn't watch it because we don't have our own channel & obviously no reasonably sane person is going to subscribe to another clubs channel just to watch their own team play their youngsters.

I'm just surprised our club hasn't got its own channel available on Sky etc. Surely, with subscriptions & advertising, there's got to be a half decent sum to be made?
 

KILLA_SIN

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2008
7,809
14,449
The premier league could become the global sports steaming platform.

The revenue generated from PremFlix as we've been calling it in the office, the sole place to see the biggest and most valuable league in the world could the revenue not just to enrich the premier league clubs but could use that revenue to outbid almost anyone for sporting rights. In theory every premier league club could generate revenue from La Liga, UCL, Copa Libertadores and so on.

Take a conservative initial take-up of 25 million global subs (Netflix 139 million, Amazon 100 million) at £14.99 a month would net £4.4 billion per annum pre tax. Obviously there are infrastructure costs associated with this but that is when you bring on a technical sponsor, like Alphabet to mitigate some of that.

What do you mean by
...could generate revenue from La Liga, UCL, Copa Libertadores and so on.
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
9,429
12,382
Simon Jordan's comments are smart and I'd imagine echo discussions already held by the EPL. However there are a few mitigating factors which make it less simple than he makes out*.

1) Distribution - Unless we're all going to watch games our tablets etc the PL's own network would need other broadcasters to carry their channel as a means of distribution. If they followed the Netflix model they could get agreements with Amazon (firestick carries Netflix) and Sky and BT etc but each of those distributors would want to charge them for it (they won't go out of their way to assist what is essentially a huge rival to their own product, as Eleven Sports' struggles demonstrate). That eats into the profitability of such a scheme and, if the net result was similar to what they're already making from the various package deals with Sky and BT, this may be the reason why the EPL are happy to continue selling the rights to 3rd parties.

2) Jordan uses the NFL as the example that the EPL could and should follow. However he misses something vital in this comparison. The 32 teams who compete on the NFL only complete in the NFL. There is no American Football equivalent of the FA Cup, Carabao Cup or Champions League. The number of subscribers to Sky/BT are inflated by them holding the rights to other competitions, which the EPL would not have the rights to. This makes it difficult to accurately estimate how many UK subscribers a PLTV would get, and that makes it safer to stick with 3rd party broadcasters and the current model of selling the packages for a guaranteed sum of money.

3) Content - PLTV would need to make other content to boost subscriptions (e.g. fans of he NFL will be aware of shows like GMFB - a breakfast show on the NFL network. If you're not aware of it and don't like NFL still look it up just to discover Kay Adams!). Other 'products' that have set up their own networks have had to do the same (e.g. WWE Network). Creating that content costs money and the EPL might just not have the appetite for it (although the existence and current output by PLTV Productions suggests they would, and can do it well!).

4) The 3pm blackout. Just because that seems to be the obstacle to all sorts of progress being made in how football is televised over here.

5) Finally, as others have mentioned, the infrastructure for live streaming here probably doesn't support millions of us streaming the NLD on a Saturday luncthime. NFL Gamepass for its European customers has been beset by technical issues. If the EPL is watching everything the NFL does and using it as a model to follow, they'll be scared off of streaming their own product by the poor quality of the existing NFL Gamepass service.

*I'm no expert on any of this, so some/all of what I've written may be bollocks. But I thought I'd contribute as its an interesting concept.

Interesting post

On point 1) Distribution, I'm not sure I understand. You've mentioned tablets (and by extension mobile phones and computers), but have you forgotten smart-TVs with apps? Surely 'distribution' would just be on a smart-tv, without much fuss?

On point 5) Infrastructure this is a good point, but I would have thought other streaming services have peak-times. For instance, I bet Netflix is incredibly popular on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Day, etc, and they seem to cope. Also, the infrastructure is getting better and better. 5G will be here soon and that will take it to the next level. That said, the 4k HD (or whatever it's called) would probably not be available on a streaming service for a while yet. But would the majority of customers care?
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
9,429
12,382
Btw, on a slightly unrelated point, I was in Curry's the other day looking at TVs and they had a super-duper 50 inch 8k or 10k (something like that) HD TV for sale. I think it was £10'000.

The picture was out of this world; detail was mind-boggling.

The floor manager said that it was one of the best on the market, but there's no content filmed in 8k yet, so it's pretty much just there to show the promotional material that had been created for it.

Still, incredible to see the tech that's available these days...
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
9,429
12,382
What do you mean by
...could generate revenue from La Liga, UCL, Copa Libertadores and so on.

I think he means that the PL themselves could bid for the TV rights for foreign football leagues, like Sky or BT Sports do.

Hence, it would generate revenue for them like it does for Sky or BT Sports.

However, as I've said in a post above, I think UEFA may have an issue with that as it's (let's face it) a massive conflict of interest.
 

Dennism

Well-Known Member
Dec 23, 2006
1,225
2,712
I cannot stand Sky and their biased coverage. Additionally, in this day and age it is ludicrous that all the matches are not on live. The Premier League running things themselves would be good. However, I think eventually each club will handle their own TV coverage. This will see the likes of Liverpool, United, Chelsea and Arsenal get even richer and make football even more predictable and even more boring.
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
23,646
93,313
That said, the 4k HD (or whatever it's called) would probably not be available on a streaming service for a while yet. But would the majority of customers care?
Believe it or not, the BBC are at the bleeding edge of this...they have been trialling 4K HD streaming for a while now, in a partnership with the Japanese equivalent of BBC.
Last year the Wimbledon final, and various World Cup games, including the final were streamed in 4K.
Im guessing they're looking forward to the point where people receiving BBC over an aerial/dish will be a thing of the past, and everything will be done via ip.
There'll be more trials this year, im guessing Wimbledon and possibly FA Cup final amongst others...Theres actually a couple of live 4K test feeds coming from iPlayer all the time if you know where to look.

The technology is there, and Its a matter of time before they push it out, mainly being theres no point until the national average broadband speed is >30mb/s...as thats the bitrate of their 4k streams.
 

KILLA_SIN

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2008
7,809
14,449
They should really never had a situation where all games moved onto Sky/BT and kept one Pleague game a week on terrestrial TV.
 

KILLA_SIN

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2008
7,809
14,449
Btw, on a slightly unrelated point, I was in Curry's the other day looking at TVs and they had a super-duper 50 inch 8k or 10k (something like that) HD TV for sale. I think it was £10'000.

The picture was out of this world; detail was mind-boggling.

The floor manager said that it was one of the best on the market, but there's no content filmed in 8k yet, so it's pretty much just there to show the promotional material that had been created for it.

Still, incredible to see the tech that's available these days...
Yeah but don't buy it from Currys go to RS or JL
 
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