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Sky and Setanta announced their fixtures for the first 15 ‘match days’  in the 2008 Premier League calendar (here is a Premier League TV Guide for US television).  What often goes unnoticed by football fans is the power that the television companies have over which clubs their money goes to.

The Premier League clubs decide how to split the money received from television, and due to bullying by the big-4  in their wisom award 25% of the money according to how many times a club is shown on TV.  For the current TV deal, that works out to £460,000 per appearance (with a minimum payment of £4.6million per year).

The fixtures announced today break down as follows:

9 appearances: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United

7 appearances: Manchester City, Newcastle, Spurs

6 appearances: Everton

5 appearances: Aston Villa, West Ham

4 appearances: Sunderland, Bolton, West Brom, Blackburn

3 appearances: Fulham, Wigan, Portsmouth, Stoke, Middlesbrough

2 appearances: Hull

The usual suspects are at the top of course, but it’s also interesting to see the ‘big clubs’ like Newcastle and Spurs getting a lot of games despite disappointing campaigns last year.  The ’small clubs’ like Blackburn and Portsmouth are getting relatively few games despite finishing higher up the league table.

This translates into cold hard cash as follows: If the discrepancy remains over the course of the season, Newcastle will receive over £3.5million more than Portsmouth - at the discretion of Sky/Setana - even though Portsmouth finished 4 places higher last year.

Putting this in real terms, it’s enough to pay two players £35k per week, or it’s like having an extra 7,500 fans at every home game.

SoccerShout posted some more examples of unfair TV money distribution last season.  For example, Newcastle getting £5million more than Middlesbrough, despite finishing only once place higher.

Let me be clear on one thing:  I don’t blame the TV companies for wanting to show more of the big-4, and even teams like Spurs and Newcastle, if that will draw the most viewers.  It’s their prerogative to optimize their offering.

I do have a problem with the Premier League distributing that money according to appearances, which effectively lets the TV companies decide which clubs get the most money.

All too often, football fans get treated like they are brain dead morons who lack any ability for critical thought. Managers think you’ll be content to listen to the deserved-a-result and ref-done-us-wrong spiel in the post-match interview. Television companies think you’re motivated by terms like Super-Grandslam Sunday, as if you couldn’t figure out on your own that the top-4 playing each other on the same day wouldn’t be worth watching.

I also find the level of analysis and tactical insight to be sorely lacking in television and newspapers. The co-commentator is too often limited to say-what-you-see analysis during the replays: “Well, the winger crossed the ball in…and the striker jumps above everyone else…gets his head to the ball…and it’s in the back of the net”. Yeah, thanks for that.

I want to like the Telegraph’s new Champions League 3D feature that turned up on their website for this week’s Champions League games involving Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. It’s really nice technology: Graphics like you’ll find in the FIFA-style games that accurately represent the players actions during the goals; the play is marked-up to highlight the runs of players; virtual camera angles that would physically impossible to capture on the pitch.

But the commentary that goes with it reverts to the state-the-bloody-obvious style that we find on TV. The Arsenal highlights start out well by highlighting Adebeyor’s neat run from the goal line to the edge of the six-yard box - I didn’t spot that on ESPN. It’s all downhill from there though - just have a listen and you’ll probably feel that a child could have come up with something more original.

Well done to the Telegraph for trying something new. They’ve done the hard part in putting the 3D replays together - they just need to find an intelligent footballer to narrate it.

Alright, so maybe they haven’t done the hard part.