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Will the BBC win back the FA Cup rights when the next contract is up?
chemical2009b
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It's important for the sake of its coverage that they do or it could be years yet.
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chemical2009b
Posts: 5,250
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is that a sentence?
The BBC doesn't have the cash to outbid ITV for the rights unless ITV have lost interest, as they did with F1. (ITV's cash position has recently improved significantly).
The other question is whether the BBC will hold on to exclusive radio rights, with talkSPORT & Absolute both rumoured to be preparing bids for the 2012-16 period.
Its not to say ITV have done a bad job with the FA Cup, but I think if the FA had the decision again to make they would probably go with BBC and Sky, rather than ITV and Setanta.
That said, I think the FA contracts could be very different by the time they come to tender again. I don't think either the BBC or ITV are big enough or rich enough to pay what they have been. ITV would like to hold on to the England games without doubt - but the FA Cup hasn't been a particularly cracking deal for them and the ratings have been underwhelming for a couple of seasons.
What the FA might decide to do is break up the FA and England contracts into smaller packages and perhaps welcome them being split up among more broadcasters. That might be their best chance of maximising revenue - and would be the only way I can think of in which some form of FA Cup or England matches returned to the BBC.
Alternatively, they might simply accept another bid from ITV which involves fewer games (one FA Cup tie per weekend, for example) with Sky or ESPN taking up the financial slack and having more games on Pay TV.
Iam sure we can live without the BBC and we will
Except that's not true: In the last rights auction, the BBC bid more than ITV, yet ITV won.
The BBC's "imaginative" coverage under the last contract included not even showing highlights of all the first and second round games. I don't think anyone wants to return to those days.
The Leeds microphone incident, missing a goal, lower audience figures and a general public apathy towards ITV = not good for an already faltering competition.
I think it's not so much apathy towards ITV (although there are still many supporters and club boards who remember the ITV digital fiasco) but a general apathy towards the FA Cup with matches being shunted all over the place,generally poor television coverage and commentary and everything aimed at the lowest common denominator. Of course I'm not saying the BBC were perfect but the general perception seems to be they were superior to ITV. The draw yesterday was a complete farce.
What would be quite good is a bid coming in from left-field in the shape of Channel Five, especially if they keep Jim Rosenthal as their main presenter. All I'd suggest they do is bring in a lead commentator whose main sport is football, and not Rugby League.
Adding the FA Cup would clog up the BBC schedules, and someone is bound to shout 'monopoly'.
If the BBC lost or sacrificed one of the current deals in their football portfolio, the FA Cup might be on the agenda again.
IMO.
If you think the BBC have a monopoly of football you clearly have never heard of Sky:eek::eek:
I think perception is a large part of it, and that's something that's very difficult to shift.
There are things that, IMO, the BBC do better than ITV, such as online coverage. I also think Match of the Day, in its current format, is as good a one-stop Premier League highlights show as there has ever been.
But the BBC's TV coverage of the Football League is abysmal. The Football League Show is padded out with inane waffle and pointless emails, and feels like it goes on forever.
And the League Cup highlights couldn't even be bothered to show an extended edit of Northampton's win at Liverpool earlier this season, even though there was multi-camera coverage there and a commentary could have dubbed on if necessary.
If ITV had chucked away such a major upset in a couple of minutes (as they did when Nottingham Forest won at Man City in the FA Cup two seasons ago) they'd have being pilloried (as they were, rightly).
No, nor not even showing highlights of all the League One and Two games of a weekend to make room for Mary Poppins, as ITV's "imaginative" coverage of the Football League gave us. But never mind, at least we got fifteen seconds of Swindon Supermarine vs Eastwood at one in the morning.
Absolutely. Not being able to see my team on TV at all on many cup weekends down the years was a major source of frustration to me, so I was happy to see the back of the BBC's FA Cup highlights coverage of old.
But speaking as someone who is/was a massive critic of the shockingly bad and incomplete way the FA Cup early round highlights were handled by the BBC throughout the 1990s and for much of the 2000s, I think it is generally accepted that they'd do a much better job on that front if they won the rights back now (presuming they can hang onto the Football League highlights rights too).
These days, they'd surely incorporate highlights from rounds one and two into The Football League Show where the lower league round-ups would usually be, rather than shoehorning them on at the end of MOTD as an afterthought. They'd also be able to extend the third round MOTD show in order to incorporate all of the games, rather than shoving the less glamorous ones them behind the red button, due to a shorter FLS.
And how is that any different to the way the majority of the games in League One and Two are covered by The Football League Show on a weekly basis?
Personally, I thought both of ITV's FA Cup Highlights shows this weekend were excellent.
On Saturday the two main shocks were fast-tracked to the top of the show with dubbed-on commentary, they had three featured matches as extended edits (as opposed the one you used to get from the BBC last time around) as well as the two which featured live on ESPN, there was a decent level of punditry but not too many stoppages and we got all the goals from all the games - which ultimately is what people want from a highlights show.
You could give a game 15 seconds or 15 minutes, but before anything else fans just want the chance to see the goals their team scored - something the BBC didn't deliver the last time they held FA Cup rights. Therefore the ITV highlights shows are surely a vast improvement on that.
For the first time this season, it felt like the Saturday highlights show I was watching flew by. Compare this to The Football League Show. I would agree with Jonnylogic, due to the mounds of e-mails, texts, waffly features and stop-start punditry, that show seems to drag on forever.
That being said, I will defend the Football League Show for that fact that once you look past all the gimmicky rubbish, you have a highlights programme that does show all the goals from all the games - therefore if the BBC got FA Cup rights back, at least they'd get that aspect of their coverage spot on.
Talking of the Football League, what has happened to Extra Time which used to go out on Monday nights in the BBC English regions - has it been given the chop ? It was about the only time my club got on TV.
I think they are due to return around the beginning of the New Year.
If you remember last season, the Late Kick-Off shows ran only in the second half of the season.
ITV last year reported massive losses including overpaying for sports rights.
ESPN is paying less than Setanta did. It isn't just the BBC that will be spending less on sports rights.
AIUI the FA Cup rights are due to come to market before the Football League rights, which would prevent that.
It is importand for the sake of HD coverage they don't
After watching some of their Wales derby in BBC HD this weekend I really hope BBC don't win any football rights!
The quality of their HD broadcast is abysmal.
The BBC could go all-out to get the FA Cup and if they succeed, they don't need to bother bidding for any Football League rights...or least, nothing over and above highlights. If they don't win the FA Cup, they could try and keep their current Football League portfolio.
If I've got my years correct, the next FA Cup and Football League deals start at the same time (2012/13). So there wouldn't even be an overlap period where the BBC are paying for both.
It depends on what the BBC value the most: regular live FA Cup matches, or irregular live Championship matches, plus three from the Carling Cup.