[Football] Should the 3pm Saturday blackout of televised football stay in place?

[Guinness Boy]

The blackout should remain.

If we were still in Div 4, surviving week to week, would a single Brighton fan advocate for it?

I take the point about firesticks etc. But I think given the huge amounts of money involved, the TV companies will increasingly clamp down on illegal streaming, most likely by refusing to sell live rights to foreign TV stations.

See, that's exactly what they WON'T do. If there were no foreign TV rights the internet becomes a moot point because then all you have to do is stop people tapping into the streams recording for Sky highlights and MotD. But foreign rights are a huge cash cow. Enormous. And only going to grow. And 3pm Saturday is almost perfect timing around the world. Sports bars in the east of the US or Canada can open for beery breakfasts to show them, it's a 4pm kick off in much of Europe and 5pm in most Eastern European and the Middle East. Absolute prime time viewing in Asia. Sixteen years ago I lived in Taiwan and the 3pm games would be on at 10pm playing to bars packed full of locals and ex pats, the sports bars made more on a Saturday than the rest of the week put together. Even watchable in Australia if you don't mind staying up late.

And you can tell from the replies on Twitter regarding anything Chelsea or Man U that the big six have an almost unlimited number of fans in Africa where, again, you can watch all the games and much of the time zones are only an hour or two different.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Would thousands of away supporters travel hundreds of miles if games were on TV

You mean like for all (the majority) of games that are not Saturday 3.-- KO? The answer is demonstrably yes.

 

[Chicken Run]

Definitely remove it for PL at the very least, it’s not as if the attendances would be affected, like legalisation of drugs it would hit the crims in the pockets!

 

[Guinness Boy]

You mean like for all (the majority) of games that are not Saturday 3.-- KO? The answer is demonstrably yes.

Exactly. Sell outs for most away days at the weekend in the top flight when there are a lot of other games. Where some clubs struggle is the 8pm Monday game, with no competition, because you've no chance of getting home without a club coach from most of them. A 6.30 Sunday would be even sillier.

 

[Hamilton]

100% No.

It's an essential mechanism for protecting football outside the modern elite.

We must all stand up for football everywhere - not just our own team, but for teams lower down the pyramid and non-league teams. Screening games on a Saturday will kill that pyramid.

Remember where we came from!

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Personally I think it unnecessary these days. The argument in favour centers around lower league attendances. If someone is motivated enough to watch their local non Prem team though then I hardly think a televised game would put them off.

 

[beorhthelm]

i'd say probably time to go. not convinced it would have the supposed affect on lower leagues.

though it wouldn't lead to kick off times confined to 3pm. our TV broadcasters have got very used to selling 4-6 games to watch over the weekend.

 

[HeaviestTed]

The blackout should go

 

[GT49er]

I'd much rather they scrapped the rule that says you can't stream an U21 match on a Friday aternoon because, for example, Sheffield United are playing Brentford later in the evening.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Personally I think it unnecessary these days. The argument in favour centers around lower league attendances. If someone is motivated enough to watch their local non Prem team though then I hardly think a televised game would put them off.

It will put some people off. I have a season ticket at Burnley and at Accrington Stanley, who mostly don't clash. If Burnley were playing live on TV at 3 pm, I wouldn't go to watch Accrington. (Bearing in mind their small gates, they do get a significant number of supporters from Burnley.)

 

[Blue3]

It should go if the EPL actually wants to shut down illegal streaming

 

[Icy Gull]

Personally I think it unnecessary these days. The argument in favour centers around lower league attendances. If someone is motivated enough to watch their local non Prem team though then I hardly think a televised game would put them off.

Before we reached the PL I had pretty well no interest in it and the idea that I’d watch a PL game on the box over going to an Albion game in League one or two was never happening

 

[keaton]

It should go if the EPL actually wants to shut down illegal streaming

I wouldn't think it would affect that at all. Would people start subscribing just because they can now watch on Saturday afternoon?

 

[drew]

Perhaps you should have had more categories, ie Those that don't go to football voting either yes or no, those that go to home games, yes or no and finally those that travel to home and away games, yes or no.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

This is also true, but looking at it beyond ourselves you don't often see many empty seats in away ends regardless of the club......accept when you play in Marseille.

I've voted no but it wasn't an easy choice. It would probably be the grass roots clubs that would suffer the most but in this day and age if you want to watch a 3pm kick off you can pretty easily. Saturday myself and a Luton supporting chum watched Crowborough rather than watching our respective teams who were playing at the same time. Ok it's easy to say would we have done that in January and hand being honest I probably would. Granted that isn't the case for everyone but those people probably already have a dodgy firestick now.

I've noticed another poster also refer to a Firestick as "dodgy".

Do you call your laptop "dodgy" if you watch porn on it for 90 minutes once a week?

 

[drew]

I would also wonder whether those voting yes are also happy for 6:30 sunday evening kick offs and probably would go as far as having 8pm kick offs on a Sunday as a regular fixture!!!

 

[beorhthelm]

I'd much rather they scrapped the rule that says you can't stream an U21 match on a Friday aternoon because, for example, Sheffield United are playing Brentford later in the evening.

doesn't sound like same sort of rule as the 3pm in legislation, its an agreement in the rights.

 

[Arthur]

I've noticed another poster also refer to a Firestick as "dodgy".

Do you call your laptop "dodgy" if you watch porn on it for 90 minutes once a week?

No because watching porn on my laptop isn't illegal (as far as I know). Watching copyrighted content on whatever device (the most popular it would seem is a firestick preloaded with IPTV software and subscription) is. Therefore dodgy.

I get your point but you are be slightly pedantic.

 

[GT49er]

doesn't sound like same sort of rule as the 3pm in legislation, its an agreement in the rights.

Whatever. I'd still like to see it scrapped!

 

[GoingUp]

The 3pm blackout is ridiculous.

If people go watch their local non league team, then they probably still would. Most fans don't as it is, they either stream or are forced to go socialise with their families for an extra 90mins!

I wouldn't cancel my ST just because I can watch us on TV and if people regularly travel to away games then they still would, hence why televised games are nearly always sold out.

The amount of money we give to TV companies should enable us to watch whatever games we want.