Have we gone mad? (footie again!)...

[Raffles]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31379128

I realise this will not sit well with the many footie fans on here... but c'mon... this deal is totally obscene.

Totally realise it's a commercial company's money to do with as it sees fit, but how much cheaper could your Sky & BT bills be if it wasn't for deals like this. Can just imagine the agents on the phone now,,, £300,000 per week is not enough for my mega star (who only performs once a month)... plus he needs a Lear jet for his future grandaughter.

If I carry on, I'll have to use expletives that are not allowed. Can anyone justify it? Or is it simply that there are so many out there prepared to pay the subscriptions. No way José... not a cent from me.

You can't even make a decent bet on the matches now, as one week they play to form, the next they might as well be a Sunday pub team. God help them if they were ever paid solely on performance.

Rant over now, so take your shots. 

[Greg]

Supply and demand, if people didn't subscibe to sky etc this kind of money wouldn't be available.
Speaking of which I really must get round to cancelling my sky sports and movies subscription

[Raffles]

Feb 10, 2015 20:26:30 GMT Greg said:

Supply and demand, if people didn't subscibe to sky etc this kind of money wouldn't be available.
Speaking of which I really must get round to cancelling my sky sports and movies subscription

Greg... I've occasionally flirted with the idea of getting Sky, but when I check the listings there is nothing I would want to watch. Then, when I see something like this, it makes me so mad, I wouldn't do it, even though I have to go without 'Fools & Horses'. 

Better hold off on what I think of the subscribers to this rip off! 

[Greg]

Feb 10, 2015 20:33:07 GMT Raffles said:

Feb 10, 2015 20:26:30 GMT Greg said:

Supply and demand, if people didn't subscibe to sky etc this kind of money wouldn't be available.
Speaking of which I really must get round to cancelling my sky sports and movies subscription

Greg... I've occasionally flirted with the idea of getting Sky, but when I check the listings there is nothing I would want to watch. Then, when I see something like this, it makes me so mad, I wouldn't do it, even though I have to go without 'Fools & Horses'. 

Better hold off on what I think of the subscribers to this rip off! 

I'm a subscriber and have every channel but for a few years I've watched very little other than the mainstream channels. It costs way too much so I must get round to downgrading to the basic package.

[reddragon]

It is a joke, the more it gets split between providers the more it costs as subscriptions go up. I am a BT customer so get BT sports included with my phone and bb but no doubt that will increase to cover costs, and no doubt the sky subscription will not come down even though they will be showing less games.

Having said that, we do make the most of it in this house, football matches watched most nights of the week and normally 5 games watched at the weekend, premier league, la liga, cup games, serie A, championship etc etc. And I am partial to a few shows on sky 1 and sky Atlantic.

And no, we don't have a life

[Tom]

Less games reddragon?

More live matches than ever before, with 126 fixtures a season versus 116 under the existing contract.

As a direct employee of sky sports premier league football I'm probably more biased than most but it is what it is.

I for one, am massively glad of the news of this deal, which has been long anticipated by me and my colleagues for quite some time - it was news to us today too, we knew sky and bt would be in a bidding war for packages of the football.

The majority of sky subscribers are brought from sky sports... of which the majority get sky sports for premier league football. Premier League football charge sky (or BT) for the right to show their games - it is a business model brought about by demand of the customer and the sad nature of wealth in the UK's favourite sport.

Whilst the other premium content is obviously directly linked, Sky's business model also means that it's sub-sections i.e. entertainment, movies.. each have budgets, costs and balance sheets that run independently. Obviously sky makes money as that is the main aim of a business but the content across the board has been dramatically improving in terms of volume and quality.

The long and short of it is there are many options available today, sky, bt, freeview... I had sky before I worked for them. If I left sky then I would still pay for sky, at the end of the day that is all a decision left to the consumer.

Hope that wasn't too ranty.

Love my job.

Super glad I get to work on the best games of the premier league for another 3 years

[reddragon]

Tom not seen the details but I presume if BT have more games then sky will have less, that was what I was meaning. As I say the cost is a lot but we definitely get our money's worth, but household budgets can only stretch so far and I suspect a lot of people will be looking at alternative ways of watching as the inevitable increases will not be affordable for many.

[Tom]

Feb 10, 2015 23:03:22 GMT reddragon said:

Tom not seen the details but I presume if BT have more games then sky will have less, that was what I was meaning. As I say the cost is a lot but we definitely get our money's worth, but household budgets can only stretch so far and I suspect a lot of people will be looking at alternative ways of watching as the inevitable increases will not be affordable for many.

There are more games in total as there will now be games shown fridays and wednesdays too.

There were 7 'packages' premier league put out for bidding. Sky won 5 of those, bt won 2.

THE PACKAGES SKY WON
Package A comprises 28 games on Saturday lunchtimes (12.30pm).
Package C has 28 games kicking off between 1.30pm and 2.15pm on Sundays. Pack A has 6 'first pick' games from 38 rounds and B has 9 first picks.
Package D is the 4pm Sunday bundle of 28 games - crucially with 18 'first pick' games.
Package E is the 'Monday night football' (8pm) bundle, with 18 games on Mondays plus 10 on Fridays; this is the first time Premier League games will be shown live on Friday evenings. There are no first picks in this package.
Package G is a bundle of 14 games on Bank Holidays and other Sunday matches with two first picks.
THE PACKAGES BT SPORT WON
Package B has 28 games at tea-time on Saturdays (5.30pm)
Packages F has 14 games, a mix of midweek and Saturday games including three first picks.

I can't argue with costs vs budgets. Perhaps the only way for costs to come down would be for people to leave, and sky/bt not be able to afford the amounts that the PL requests.

I do think that the country is also footy mental so will probs pay whatever to watch - or at least I hope so, so I can keep my job xD

[Dave]

To be honest I couldn't give a monkeys about sky / BT / whoever

I'm a football lad through and through I'd rather sit / stand on a freezing cold terrace and watch my team in the middle of february than have to listen to the likes of Carragher giving his opinions on teams and managers when he has never stepped up to the plate?

There are better ways to spend the money sky / BT / whoever charge

Just my opinion

[reddragon]

It is the fans that go to the games that I feel sorry for, how much mucking around and changing of kick off times / days is that lot going to cause

As much as I moan Tom I do think the sky coverage of football (and sport in general) and their pundits / commentators, especially PL and La Liga, is the best around (apart from Thierry Henry) so I guess you get what you pay for, so keep up the good work and I hope you keep your job for many years to come

[Bobsbeer]

Not a football fan, and not a Sky subscriber, but I do think the world has gone nuts over what at the end of the day is a bag of wind. If people are prepared to pay, good luck to them. But not me.

[Tom]

A thread dedicated to slating my career that I am passionate about.

Just awesome.

[Greg]

Feb 10, 2015 23:42:15 GMT Tom said:

A thread dedicated to slating my career that I am passionate about.

Just awesome.

It's nothing personal Tom 

[Tom]

Feb 10, 2015 23:43:44 GMT Greg said:

Feb 10, 2015 23:42:15 GMT Tom said:

A thread dedicated to slating my career that I am passionate about.

Just awesome.

It's nothing personal Tom 

I know.

I'm used to it.

[Greg]

Feb 10, 2015 23:46:25 GMT Tom said:

Feb 10, 2015 23:43:44 GMT Greg said:

It's nothing personal Tom 

I know.

I'm used to it.

I worked for BG Group for 20 odd years and the number of people who thought it was British Gas and used to whinge about their gas bill to me. Now I work for Centrica, who actually are British Gas no one mentions it