Rethinking Football / SoccerShout.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

We’ve examined the have’s and have-not’s in the Premier League in previous posts.  The disparity was between them was brought into focus by a comment from Sir Alex Ferguson this week.

Manchester United announced this week that they have signed three key players to long-term contracts (well…two key players and Wes Brown).  But it doesn’t stop there for Fergie:

“We have a strong squad already and this just keeps it going,” said Ferguson. “And I would imagine there is a good possibility of stocking up again in the summer.”

Stocking up?  Nice term.  Sounds like a fat man at a buffet, doesn’t it?

Will the teams coming out of the Championship be stocking up this summer?  How about the teams that managed to escape relegation?  Or the ones stuck in the mid-table obscurity?  Clearly no - so it’s just the rich getting better (and therefore richer) and everyone else falling further behind.

Or…business as usual for the Premier League.

One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books:

The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.

For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question ‘How can we eat?’ the second by the question ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question ‘Where shall we have lunch?’

(From “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”, by Douglas Adams)

It turns out that industries also go the the ‘How, Why, and Where’ phases when faced with disruptions caused by modern life.

When it comes to the Premier League and selling television coverage, it goes like this:

How can I make money on this?

Why are other people already five steps ahead of us?

Where can I find a good lawyer?

It looks to me like the Premier League too busy not learning anything from the record industry to deal with these problems the right way (and I define the ‘right way’ as giving the public exactly what they want, at a tremendous value, while making scads of cash from the situation).

–

Are you on the run from the football police? Life on the lam will be easier if you subscribe to this blog in order to get regular updates. Together we can make football better. It starts here. You can receive updates by email or RSS. Both are free and spam-free, and you can back-out at any time.

Robin Van Persie should be congratulated, along with his Arsenal colleagues, for his focus on providing entertainment while he’s on the pitch. A comment he made recently though was a reminder of who the team is really there to entertain.

Just before the recent defeat to Manchester United (another nice dose of entertainment), he spoke these words to the Times:

“For me, the basic of football is to give enjoyment to people buying a ticket. That’s where it starts. We are like 11 actors on a stage, we have to give enjoyment.”

Again, this shows what a great attitude Arsenal have, and it’s entertainment that will drive football’s success in business terms.

But Van Persie - and many others - often forget that the people buying the ticket make up a tiny percentage of the people being entertained. How tiny? Well, for every fan in the Emirates Stadium, there are another 1250 fans watching the game live around the world. So the people in the ground represent less than 0.1% of the live audience (never mind about the people enjoying the game in packaged highlights around the world).

That ratio - 1250 to 1 - should be remembered when the new season ticket prices are being announced. For example, Boro are offering really good value for kids in order to boost their attendance, while leaving the adult prices untouched. But is such tinkering really worth it when there’s a vast worldwide market waiting to be tapped?

–

If you love a good ratio as much as the next man (and perhaps just a little bit more), then subscribe to this blog in order to get regular updates. Together we can make football better. It starts here. You can receive updates by email or RSS. Both are free and spam-free, and you can back-out at any time.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a couple of days, so forgive me if I sound like I’m trying to be smart after the event.  I had a thought at the weekend that makes this whole mess even odder, and I also got an email back from the Premier League.

Quick recap: Thanks to Setanta, Chelsea find themselves playing on both Monday and Thursday night this week.  The Monday game is pushed back from the past weekend, and the Thursday game has been brought forward from next week (with less than 20 days notice).  It’s patently unfair on Chelsea to make them play two games so close together at this late stage of the season - sacrificing sporting balance at the behest of the TV monster.

I noticed a couple of things at the weekend.  First of all, there was no lunchtime kick-off on Saturday.  This is the Setanta timeslot.  Presumably the Chelsea v Wigan game could have been played then and the furore about the Thursday game would have been pretty much non-existent.

The second thing: who the hell actually wants to watch Chelsea v Wigan?  I was genuinely going to predict this was going to be a thoroughly dull 1-0 or 2-0 to Chelsea.  Yes, there was a twist at the end of the game that might have been a fatal wound to Chelsea’s title ambitions, but I don’t think that made up for the preceding 92-minute monotony.  Personally, I would have preferred a relegation-related fixture like Reading v Fulham or Bolton v West Ham.  If this would have drawn a lower audience than the Chelsea game, then shame on us football fans.

I actually wrote to the Premier League to ask them why the Everton v Chelsea fixture had been re-arranged.  I felt like I was being pretty explicit with the question:

My main point of interest is: why re-arrange the fixture at all?

The Premier League statement quoted in the press cited “enormous pressure from international match and European competition dates, as well as the need to balance the important requirements of the police and our broadcasters”.

But there was no pressure on the original weekend date for the fixture.  There are dozens of midweek games that go untelevised throughout the season, so if there’s a quota to be filled there are surely plenty of other candidates.

So why re-arrange a fixture that, as far as I can tell, didn’t need to be re-arranged?

The reply came back after six days:

Thank you for your email concerning the Everton v Chelsea fixture. We appreciate the inconvenience caused when fixtures change at late notice, and we apologise for any problems this has caused for you.

Fixture planning is a complex process and we always try to give at least 4 weeks notice when fixtures move. Premier League fixtures can only be fixed once dates for other competitions have been set, e.g. the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and Champions League, and this can make it difficult to find slots for some games. In addition to this, as you may be aware, the European Commission determined that we must provide 138 matches for live TV coverage; this further limits our ability to schedule fixtures as and when we would want during the season. Also we are committed to ensuring that the ‘closed window’ is preserved - that is, that games are not shown live on television at 3pm on a Saturday - to protect attendances and participation at all levels of the game. Another reason fixtures cannot always be scheduled is to do with the willingness or ability of the police service to cover a certain time. Unfortunately this means some matches have to be moved at late notice through a combination of the factors outlined above and in order for us to meet the requirements of our TV contracts.

Attached is our fixture fact list for your information.

So nice of them to reply, but just one problem - which I put to them in a reply:

I don’t feel it addressed my main question though: Why re-arrange this specific fixture?

No reply in the past 11 days, so I suppose we’ll just have to go with the “what’s more likely” method.  The Police insisted on the change to a prime-time slot?  The European Commission insisted on the change to a prime-time slot?  Or Setanta?

Tricky…tricky…

–

TV company got you down too?  Thumb your nose at them by subscribing to this blog in order to get regular updates. Together we can make football better.  It starts here.  You can receive updates by email or RSS. Both are free and spam-free, and you can back-out at any time.

I’ve long been a critic of the Premier League’s hair-brained approach to dealing with modern technology and media distribution. But wait until you read this article about a revamped website. All of this will be available for the upcoming season.

The highlights:

• Almost every game available live (the exceptions being the nationally televised games)
• All games available as 25-minute highlight packages, available anytime.
• It will be possible to watch up to six live games at once, picture-in-picture style.
• All this for an annual fee of $90 (£45).
• Additional option to receive video of key incidents to mobile phones less than 90 seconds after they happen (for $4 per month)
• Expected revenues for this website are $500 million.

If that has got you whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, I have one more piece of news for you: the website belongs to Major League Baseball.

Yes, the sport most associated with white-haired grandpa’s in rocking chairs has the most progressive and fan-friendly online media offering in sports. Other American sports leagues are not far behind though: The NFL, NBA and NHL all offer live streaming of all games to subscribers.

What does the Premier League offer us? If you click on the “TV” tab on their website, you’ll be able to see…a listing of what games are on TV (as long as you live in the UK, because it only lists British TV channels).

As a fan, this kills me because I only get to see around one game in three of the team I support.

As a spectator of the business of football, this kills me because they’re leaving so much money on the table it hurts. The MLB can snag $500 million a year from its website, yet the Premier League can only get $400 million a year for its overseas television deal!

Meanwhile, fans are watching live streaming video on the websites of pirates who are lining their pockets. And they’re packing the British pubs that show satellite TV feeds from Scandinavia and the Middle East.

I’ve long been a critic of the Premier League’s hair-brained approach to dealing with modern technology and media distribution. But wait until you read this article about a revamped website. It’ll make you weep.

—

If this kind of thing burns your ass as much as as it does mine, please subscribe to this blog in order to get regular updates. Together we can make football better.  It starts here.  You can receive updates by email or RSS. Both are free and spam-free, and you can back-out at any time.

Would you get hooked on “24″ if you could only watch every third episode?

Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.  You’ll be able to read newspaper accounts of what happened in the episode, and you’ll see 2 minutes of highlights on the TV, so it’s not like you’re going to miss anything.

That’s what it’s like being a footy fan in the US.  There’s very few cable/satellite systems that carry both Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta, so you’re usually only have the choice of 3 or 4 games over the weekend.  This, in turn, means you your team play maybe 1 week in 3 - a lot less if you support a team outside of the top-4.

Would you get hooked on Middlesbrough, or Fulham, or Wigan, or Bolton, or Birmingham, or Aston Villa, or Spurs…if you could only see one out of every three episodes?

The majority of Premier League clubs have already wrapped up the loose ends of their season.  No more cups to play for.  Can’t be relegated - or can’t stay up.  Done and done.

Just one problem: there are still five games left.

If this was the TV series “24″, the Jack would have caught the bad guys, defused the bomb, saved the president, got the girl…and there would still be three episodes to go.  Would people still tune in to watch him fill out the paperwork, go home, pull on his pajamas and finally get a few hours sleep?

That’s the situation for fans of 11 of the 20 clubs in the Prem.  I’m counting the top-6 and Reading, Bolton and Birmingham as still having something to play for.  Fulham are Championship-bound I’m afraid, and the clubs from 7 to 15 are staying more-or-less where they are.

How are the fans of those eleven teams meant to get excited about the remaining five games?  It’s 15% of the season - seems a shame to take that much of the season and make it worthless.

If I ran a club or a league…I wouldn’t just accept this situation.

Some telling comments on a Boro message board thread, titled “Are We Stagnating?” on FMTTM.

Benboro kicks the thread off:

This season has been really poor. 15th position in the league, we will do well to reach 40 points and will just stay up as there are many equally poor sides ( many of whom have not spent the money we have )

So once again we re group and go into a new season full of hope and expectations. The season ticket renewal arrives on the door mat promising top players, attacking football and relative success.

Then after another season of ups and mainly downs I will most likely be sat here typing exactly the same stuff in a years time.

Then Parmogus:

i have had 31 years of that mate and thats why i have given it all up i just cannot be arsed with it all .Years ago i used to stand on the holgate with about 22 mates week in and week out the same as when the riverside opened as well there are now 5 left and only 1 is defo renewing next year

Then Diasboro_Dan:

Someone has got to be mid-table and mid-table is the worst place to be nowadays. There’s nothing to compete for but no opportunity to experiment for next season because safety is so much more important now. For example, Adam Johnson can’t be given games but he can’t be loaned out, so they can’t make the most of him. Also, it’s the worst position financially. It costs millions to park the side in mid-table, whereas demoted Watford actually made a profit from last season after selling just one player and still having a team. They are more financially secure than Boro.

I think this could have come from fans of any of about 8 or 9 clubs in the Prem, whose highest aspiration is UEFA Cup qualification or a good run in one of the cups.

It’s that last comment that really resonated with me: “Mid-table is the worst place to be”. It costs millions to maintain that position, but the fans are deserting because it’s so boring.

Ouch.

I wrote a post yesterday that floated the idea of making League Two an under-24’s league in an effort to differentiate it from the rest of the league.

I raised the notion on the forum I post most often (a Boro forum run by the club’s FMTTM fanzine) and got a pretty comprehensive ticking off by the people who responded. The main objection - quite rightly - being that the idea is unworkable when teams are swapping leagues. Do promoted or relegated teams joining the league have to sack all their older players? Hmmm…good point.

The inspiration for the article, though, was this: What can a League Two club do to make it more attractive to supporters? And is there anything the league can do to encourage such behaviour?

Let’s take Darlington as an example. The club is about 15 miles west of Middlesbrough. The town’s population is just shy of 100,000 - pretty close to Middlesbrough’s 135,000 residents. Darlington’s average crowd this season is less than 4,000 - a shambles compared to Boro’s much-maligned 26,500 average.

So what could Darlington do to get a few more people through the door?

• Brand themselves as the place to come and see up-and-coming footballers (and back that up by attracting some decent kids, training them, and giving them lots of playing time).
• Take the best five young players that Boro will loan them on season-long deals.
• Cut their prices a bit so that a dad and his two kids go could see a game for twenty quid.
• Move their games to Thursday nights to escape from the weekend crowd.
• Move their kick-off times to 6:30 p.m. You could take your kids and be home for nine o’clock. You could go for a pint after work and then straight to the game (and have change from twenty quid).

Any or all of these tactics would be fairly easy to implement and I’d bet they’d have a positive effect on the attendance figures and the overall financial health of the club.

Darlington have tried something else this season - play better football - and it didn’t work. As far as the league goes, they’re having their having their best season for a while. But their attendance figures are still anemic and they can’t get more than a four-sentence match report from the BBC. Ouch.

What would you do if you ran a football club that sat well outside of the top tier of the sport?

The Premier League is clearly the place to be. There’s a big drop - in terms of money and attention - when you step down to the Championship. And even more when you go down to League One and League Two.

Everyone who wants it has access to watch the Premier League. Thanks to modern telly you can watch the best teams and the best games, regardless of where in the world you live.

So why is anyone going to come to your League Two games?

There’s an attraction to watching your local side, no matter what quality you’re going to see. There’s also something to be said for watching a game in person. And there are people who will prefer watching a lower-league side - closer to the action, less pretentious players, more local players, etc.

But the attendance figures in League Two will tell you that there’s only so many people who are motivated to watch their local side. And no ground ever gets more than half-full.

So what else could you try? Here’s what I would do:

Commit my club to producing the best local talent. Hire some good coaches who can work with kids and young adults. Commit to playing the younger players in the league, maybe even to the point of putting an upper limit of 24 on the age of players.

It’s all about branding, so I’d promote the club to fans as the place to come to see the future of English football. I’d promote the club to players as the place to learn the trade, where you’ll get plenty of playing time in order to develop, and we’ll not stop you should a bigger club come calling.

From a business point-of-view, I should be all set as I’d not have to pay much in wages, which is always the biggest outgoing for any football club.

Now, if I ran the whole league, I’d get every club committed to this model. An entire league dedicated to producing the cream of English football. It would get a following from future-watchers who want to see the best young talent the country has to offer. I’d even move the games to, say, Thursday nights or Friday nights, when there will be little competition from the bigger leagues. People who were sick of the antics of the superstars in the Premier League would be drawn in.

At this point you may be shaking your head and saying that will never catch on. But what I’m proposing is actually pretty similar to college football (egg-shaped variety) in the USA. And it’s hugely popular - not because the players are better than their NFL counterparts, but because (a) you get to see future stars, (b) it’s a team you have some affinity for, (c) the games are more attractive to watch because the kids haven’t learned to be cynical yet.

In the US, there are twice as many people going to a college Division One game than going to an NFL game. They’re obviously doing something that is attracting people. It’s certainly not a second-rate league.

Now that the ‘best’ can be everywhere, the ‘not best’ crowd have to find their own niche. I think this would work will for lower-league football in the UK.

Update: See this follow-up article.