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2016/2017 Football League TV Fixtures Thrread?


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Old 30-12-2016, 10:04
TLG86
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The Difference - that's very interesting, I'm not sure what to make of the clubs' being upset with the TV deal. It does seem odd that the National League gets better coverage than Leagues One and Two.

On the EFL Trophy, I've always wondered if it might be a good idea to give the winner promotion to the Championship (i.e. with four going down, so still three up from League One)? That would instantly increase the interest and value of that competition. The only issue, I suppose, is that if the winner could then metaphorically go on holiday for the last few games of the season, but I definitely think it would be worth considering.
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Old 30-12-2016, 12:18
AR1983
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The Difference - that's very interesting, I'm not sure what to make of the clubs' being upset with the TV deal. It does seem odd that the National League gets better coverage than Leagues One and Two.

On the EFL Trophy, I've always wondered if it might be a good idea to give the winner promotion to the Championship (i.e. with four going down, so still three up from League One)? That would instantly increase the interest and value of that competition. The only issue, I suppose, is that if the winner could then metaphorically go on holiday for the last few games of the season, but I definitely think it would be worth considering.
What if league two club wins it?
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Old 30-12-2016, 13:40
Dwight1970
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The Difference - that's very interesting, I'm not sure what to make of the clubs' being upset with the TV deal. It does seem odd that the National League gets better coverage than Leagues One and Two.

On the EFL Trophy, I've always wondered if it might be a good idea to give the winner promotion to the Championship (i.e. with four going down, so still three up from League One)? That would instantly increase the interest and value of that competition. The only issue, I suppose, is that if the winner could then metaphorically go on holiday for the last few games of the season, but I definitely think it would be worth considering.
The problem with the EFL Trophy is that there is minimal interest other than a few hardcore fans at each club until a Wembley day out arrives. No matter what incentive there is at the end of the tournament most lower league clubs would probably generate as much if not more income through gate from staging a friendly against decent opposition instead of competing in the early rounds, in the way inviting U23 sides was a way of admitting that but that was handled in such a farcical way it became a pointless exercise.

Ultimately there has to be wide spread interest in an event to have a national broadcaster thinking it is worthwhile showing, which sadly for the lower leagues is very rarely the case for most of their fixtures and unlike some other nations which have strong regional coverage that can use any local interest in an event as a worthwhile reason to show it.

The truth is for most clubs in the lower leagues the paying match going spectators are far more valuable than a TV audience for at least 90% of their matches so I reckon selling highlights is far more worthwhile to them than worrying about live coverage which is usually far more disruptive to their fans in terms of kick off times.
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Old 30-12-2016, 16:05
seagull_Mark
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The only way I can see Leagues 1 and 2 ever getting more live TV coverage is by splitting the rights away from the Championship and going with a different broadcaster.

The weekend's live matches from the PL and Championship already fill every available slot, even creating additional Thursday ones some weekends. It isn't in Sky's interests to schedule additional lower league matches against their own higher profile games, so there isn't really anywhere for Sky to fit in these games.

And if it's a choice between increasing the number of live L1 & 2 games by reducing Championship ones, no broadcaster would ever voluntarily choose that I'm afraid. They really have to look elsewhere.
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Old 30-12-2016, 16:14
howard h
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The problem with the EFL Trophy
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I remember way back in the 70's there was a Rugby League Floodlit Cup, where the second half of games shown midweek were shown live on the BBC. The key being it was a way for a little club to get exposure - if their lights were good enough.

Couldn't the No-one's Bothered Cup Trophy benefit from a similar thing, the third and fourth tiers playing north/south knockout games with one tie (second half) being shown on FTA TV on a Tues, and one from the other region on the Weds, until the final itself which would be weekend at Wembley?

Trouble is, with so much other sport being on live at the same time, such as Euro Cups etc, or even live Premier games, it would be difficult to find an audience I suppose.

Apart from that, one way to spice it up would be to award an extra league bonus point to the winners of each tie - if they go to the final that could be extra 5 or 6, which could well give them guaranteed promotion or a play-off spot...or keep them up! That way I bet managers wouldn't play 11-yr-olds
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:59
stevvy1986
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The Difference - that's very interesting, I'm not sure what to make of the clubs' being upset with the TV deal. It does seem odd that the National League gets better coverage than Leagues One and Two.

On the EFL Trophy, I've always wondered if it might be a good idea to give the winner promotion to the Championship (i.e. with four going down, so still three up from League One)? That would instantly increase the interest and value of that competition. The only issue, I suppose, is that if the winner could then metaphorically go on holiday for the last few games of the season, but I definitely think it would be worth considering.
I can't ever see that happening personally. Can you imagine if for example, as unlikely as it is, the team finishing bottom of L2 won it? They'd win promotion up 2 leagues (or 1, whichever) despite actually being rubbish in the league and finishing in a relegation place, which is just....silly. Unlikely I admit, but it could theoretically happen.
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Old 30-12-2016, 23:38
The Difference
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The only way I can see Leagues 1 and 2 ever getting more live TV coverage is by splitting the rights away from the Championship and going with a different broadcaster.
Ultimately, this is what I see happening. I think neither Championship clubs nor lower league clubs do particularly well out of the existing Sky Sports TV deal, it has taken until the latest round of Premier League TV rights for many of the second tier clubs to wake up to how rushing through the last Football League TV rights upon Sky offering Sky Bet as a title sponsor has undervalued what they could potentially earn from a bidding war between Sky and rival broadcasters - seeing as teams dropping into the Championship will in future do so with massive parachute payments in comparison to the amount their current TV deal generates.

But there is such a gulf between the Championship and League One when it comes to coverage and the TV money that comes with it - the most recent figure I've seen bandied around valuing promotion to the second tier is £8 million, which has meant that going up to or staying up in the Championship feels make-or-break to smaller clubs in a way that it simply didn't a decade ago.

Due to Sky's demand to cover the biggest clubs outside the Premier League, most of which are in the Championship, and the bigger clubs' demand for as much money as possible in order to best compete with the parachute-payment bolstered relegated clubs, we now have a Football League TV deal where the vast majority of the money in concentrated on the second tier in a way it simply wasn't during Sky's first contract and when ITV held live rights.

There is a not undeserved perception that Shaun Harvey has little concern for the health of clubs in the lower divisions and this has only been crystallised by the disastrous reforms to the Trophy. The fact that the league has fined lower league clubs who've played young players in the Trophy who have not been in their league matchday squads, but has not punished the youth teams of the higher division clubs who've broken rules on the number of over-aged players they can field, just about says it all as far as I'm concerned.

I think ultimately the Championship clubs will want to break away from the lower divisions in order to sell rights to their league's games alone for the highest offer in order to better compete with the Premier League, while the executives of League One and Two clubs will want to break away to seek a deal that provides better coverage and more money than the current 20 regular season, 10 Play-Off and (less than) 5 Trophy games that Sky Sports are currently contracted to show - if BT Sport can justify demand for 30 National League matches per season (indeed has that number risen? BT seem to be showing a game most weeks from the fifth tier), then I'm sure they or another broadcaster would be willing to at least match that level of commitment were they to go it alone. Having the lower divisions' deal tacked onto that of the Championship doesn't seem to be working that well for anyone other than Sky Sports, who are happy to keep exclusive live rights to the league games involving 72 clubs under their umbrella and away from BT Sport and the terrestrial channels.

As for the Football League Trophy, I didn't see much wrong with the old format. The crowds early on were fairly meagre, but the ticket prices were always cheap across the board which helped families and people with less disposable income to get to watch their teams at a more affordable cost. Excitement in the competition built the further you got - as a Walsall fan, one of the few times we have sold out our ground was for the home leg of the 2015 Area Final, and getting to Wembley for the first time meant an awful lot to the club. Indeed the attendance for the Bristol City v Walsall final the season before last broke 72,000 - that doesn't look too shabby for a competition that supposedly few care about.

However, if the format had to change, rather than bring in the youth teams of fashionable clubs or look for a different incentive (I wouldn't want to see promotion decided through it, nor do I think it would be workable), what I would do is replace the current 16 youth teams with 16 willing teams from the National League, then regionalise the group stage/early knockout rounds to the nth degree based on geography - do away with the blind draw and go further than the Northern and Southern section split (which does very little for clubs in the Midlands, East Anglia, Wales etc), and bring together groups that would match Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay and Yeovil for example. So right from the off you'd have competitive local derbies between teams that might not play each other often due to being in different divisions, shorter travelling times for visiting fans and more interest in the stage of the competition that commands the least support. The broader north/south regional divides can come into effect the longer the tournament goes on, concluding with the Northern and Southern Area Finals and Wembley final we have at present.

And if teams want to use the competition as a platform to bring through young players who are registered members of their squads, let them! Fans like to see young, home-grown players get their chance - this season's Trophy top scorer thus far, Amadou Bakayoko, is a good example of a young player who has used the opportunities he's been given in the competition to earn a regular place in Walsall's league side. It's ridiculous for Shaun Harvey and co to incentivise lower league clubs to play young home-grown players in the league, but penalise them from doing so in their Trophy.

I think if the Trophy does go ahead into next season, minus the poorly-received youth teams, a few positive tweaks to the format like the ones I've suggested combined with good marketing and possibly a new TV deal away from Sky Sports could be the boost the competition needs after this term's PR disaster.
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Old 31-12-2016, 01:34
wolvesdavid
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I think the only realistic option for the EFL Trophy is for it to be scrapped, as regretable as it might be to say that.
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Old 31-12-2016, 08:03
TLG86
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I can't ever see that happening personally. Can you imagine if for example, as unlikely as it is, the team finishing bottom of L2 won it? They'd win promotion up 2 leagues (or 1, whichever) despite actually being rubbish in the league and finishing in a relegation place, which is just....silly. Unlikely I admit, but it could theoretically happen.
If a League 2 club won it they'd go into the Championship. I wouldn't have five down from League 1 in such circumstances, but lose one promoted from League 2. So the top two would go up automatically and three to six would contest the playoffs.

If a club did finish in the relegation zone of League 2, I don't think it would be that silly. Ultimately they'd have won a competition. I think the potential downside is that the team promoted to the Championship might struggle in the Championship. But I'd have thought if this did come in, teams would take it a lot more seriously so it would be more likely to be won by a League 1 club anyway.
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Old 31-12-2016, 11:26
Judio
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I just hope that the "ex" big boys in the Championship dont try and form a Premier League 2
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Old 31-12-2016, 12:55
howard h
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I just hope that the "ex" big boys in the Championship dont try and form a Premier League 2
If all the "best" players clear off to China, for the experience not the money, you understand, what price Premier League 1?
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Old 31-12-2016, 23:45
wolvesdavid
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It will be interesting to know how much Mel Morris thinks the Football League clubs could get from a new TV deal. The rumoured £90m a year, isn't too bad, considering the ITV Digital Deal was £105m per year (£315m over 3 years) and of course ITV didn't actually end up paying for the deal!

I do think that the last set of rights should have been tendered though.

And I think its obvious to say but the Foootball League needs exposure as well. Sticking it on ITV Digital (which hardly anyone could receive at the time) was the worst thing possible that the league could have done. Sticking it on some obscure internet subscription model, with constant buffering, is not exactly going to have fans flocking to their laptops, tablets, or mobiles.

As for league 1 and league 2 clubs, they do get bigger payouts simply be being in the Football League, would they really get that much money from their own separate TV deal.
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Old 01-01-2017, 00:22
popeye13
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It will be interesting to know how much Mel Morris thinks the Football League clubs could get from a new TV deal. The rumoured £90m a year, isn't too bad, considering the ITV Digital Deal was £105m per year (£315m over 3 years) and of course ITV didn't actually end up paying for the deal!

I do think that the last set of rights should have been tendered though.

And I think its obvious to say but the Foootball League needs exposure as well. Sticking it on ITV Digital (which hardly anyone could receive at the time) was the worst thing possible that the league could have done. Sticking it on some obscure internet subscription model, with constant buffering, is not exactly going to have fans flocking to their laptops, tablets, or mobiles.

As for league 1 and league 2 clubs, they do get bigger payouts simply be being in the Football League, would they really get that much money from their own separate TV deal.
Yeah i didn't get why the EFL went with just extending Sky's contract. It was stupid and meant anyone else had no chance, while Sky got the rights in what felt like some dodgy backroom deal.
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Old Today, 02:37
wolvesdavid
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I thought the 72 Football League clubs were having a meeting at Pride Park (home of Derby County) on Thursday 5th January? Has anyone heard anything from the meeting?
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