Are morning matches possible?
Simon Jackson
Posts: 8,687 Forum Member
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In the recent Commonwealth Games, some hockey matches were played in the morning.Has there ever been any reports of football matches being played before midday. Anyone for 10am, 11am kick offs
Might make a change. What are the chances of leagues doing that for TV ratings
Might make a change. What are the chances of leagues doing that for TV ratings
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I don't think fans and broadcasters would be happy about 10am kickoffs though.
Possibly. It all seems a bit inconvenient though, people driving in would have to be up and on the road very early.
Just don't really see any benefits of early kick-offs, other than it's something a bit different.
More TV slots?
Weekend afternoons and weekday evenings are really the best time for football matches to be played.
11.30 is the earliest I can every recall too. Don't think I'd want to attend a match any earlier. I've been to athletics that started at 8.30 and went to the Tour De France Grand Depart early doors too but they were different sports. Don't think football is suited to an early kick-off.
Even during World Cup games when we've seen AM kick offs it has seen a little wired watching football at that time.
I doubt there would be any interest from the broadcasters for an early kick-off. They tend to rate better with a later slot.
Wasn't there a Man City match - possibly against Villa - which kicked off at around 11am on Sunday not so long ago?
Man City v Everton 11.15am no surprise the match & atmosphere was dog turd the match ended 0-0.
Only if you want to make football as popular as hockey is. Imagine getting up at 7am on a Saturday morning after a rough Friday night to get to the pub before the game kicking off at 10am. You'd be lucky if the players turned up! 3pm Saturday is perfect with a nice tasty 530 kick off on Sky sports.
Climbing out of bed early on a Saturday or Sunday would be the final straw.
Then again, the match going crowd have never been in the thoughts of those in the media, despite them being hypocritically quick to be enthusiatic about "how the crowd was tonight."
Would the TV companies themselves actually want an early morning Saturday or Sunday kick-off, though? I can't see that being a particularly good time for getting a high number of viewers, compared to the Saturday tea time and Sunday afternoon kick-offs that are currently the standard times for televised matches.
I'm sure that the Northumbria Police would make the Tyne & Wear derby to kick off at 8am if they could.
That'll never happen with TV demands, personally i think all Premier League matches not on TV should be moved to Sunday 3pm & televised live even if it's on the Red button like SKY do for Champions League matches, & those teams playing Champions League on the following Tuesday the matches are played 12.45pm Saturday.
It's not that simple though. They don't just keep PL matches at 3pm Saturday to preserve the 'closed window' - they also do it for supply & demand. Drip feeding what's now 154 matches per season from 60 per season in 1992 has enabled the PL to eek out huge sums for the UK market. Moving those extra 3pm matches to a Sunday and making the package(s) available for UK purchase would bring in minimal funds because they're not exactly the biggest head-to-heads of the season. I can't see a scenario of all 380 matches being sold in the UK for the foreseeable future, so much so that should the next auction have another increase it will only be a small incremental increase of a maximum of 15-20 matches.