How Much???

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I mainly follow football on the radio these days (free!). Radio commentary is generally pretty good, as they know they have to describe the action to listeners, unlike TV commentators who just waffle and chunter away to themselves. I watch the occasional game in the pub.

Would never in a million years pay Rupert Murdoch to pipe raw sewage into my front room, and am unlikely to ever bother with any TV deal. I just don't watch that much telly these days.

vacheron

So they need £80 from every man woman and child in the UK just to cover the broadcast rights.

I'm with others that if people are prepared to pay inflated subscription costs, endure increased advertising, or suffer a reduction in the rest of the channels where cuts may be made to cover this ridiculous amounts of money to watch 90 minutes of kicking a ball about with perhaps 1-2 minutes in total of something really inspired, exciting or exceptional (or as exceptional as rolling a ball about gets) then that is the free market economy and I have no issues with that.

The more football obsessed customers are willing to pay to watch their beloved game, the less money they'll have to spend in the rest of the economy, and the more bargains and deals will be available for the rest of us.

onlyroz

Sky really should focus more on their core customers rather than assuming we're all interested in sport. We ditched it this month and moved over completely to Netflix and Amazon instant which both together cost less than a third of our £37 a month Sky subscription.

wotsthat

We abandoned Sky this month too (after a decade of procrastination).

Not noticing much difference to be honest except now it's £37/ month cheaper to moan about there being nothing to watch on telly.

ruggedtoast

I just think its a shame. My little boy wanted to do football so we were taking him to the local club for the under 6's practice on a Saturday. The guys there are all really nice, healthy, active, positive attitude. Exactly what a good working class sport should be exemplifying.

I might be missing everything because I have never seen a live game of football and cant imagine how or why I would choose to support one team over a another one, but I cant see what parallel there is here with a bunch of overpaid posers rolling around the ground feigning death in Wembley to get a free kick. The 22 of them earning more for that match than probably all the fan's salaries combined for the year.

What is the point of them?

You can see it rubbing off already on the kids who's families actually do follow football properly. They already have all the play acting and rolling around on the ground pretending they are in agony. Not in context of trying to get anything, its just what they see the footballers on Sky doing so they think they are meant to do it in practice. Shame.

N1AK

the_flying_pig wrote: »

the size of the increase [say setting aside a quarter of the increase, call it half a billion quid] is easily enough money to make a real, real difference to coaching kids, to go a long way towards putting England on a par with Spain or Germany, but it obviously won't happen.

We don't expect car manufacturers to pay for racing driver training, trainer manufacturers to pay for school running tracks, Nandos to pay for school cooking lessons etc etc. As long as they, and their players, pay the correct tax on the huge amounts involved, it isn't reasonable to demand they do more.

There isn't a 'correct' price, ultimately companies pay what they think it is worth. Sky and BT are aggressively competing for the sports viewer market, and imo vastly overpaying. I have a feeling that the only people really suffering from this will be Sky & BT because they can't viably pass on that kind of cost increase to customers.

purch

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I have never seen a live game of football

That is impossible to believe :eek:

ruggedtoast

purch wrote: »

That is impossible to believe :eek:

I mean actually having gone to see a proper game in person, not on tv.

purch

I don't find that impossible to believe.

vacheron

ruggedtoast wrote: »

.....but I cant see what parallel there is here with a bunch of overpaid posers rolling around the ground feigning death in Wembley to get a free kick. The 22 of them earning more for that match than probably all the fan's salaries combined for the year.

You can see it rubbing off already on the kids who's families actually do follow football properly. They already have all the play acting and rolling around on the ground pretending they are in agony. Not in context of trying to get anything, its just what they see the footballers on Sky doing so they think they are meant to do it in practice. Shame.

This is why I prefer to watch cycling instead.

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I might be missing everything because I have never seen a live game of football.

I've been to quite a few because it my brother had a corporate table that would otherwise have gone to waste if there weren't any clients being entertained that week (Very MSE! :money:).
Nice free food in a warm room, then we had to go outside for 45 minutes and shout at barely visible specs on a field before they would let us go back in for more drinks and a cream cake. Then for some reason they made us go back outside again for another 45 minutes?

IMHO they got it half right!