Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“But yes, I think the League Cup is a good contract to have, let alone the fact you basically get it free with the Football League. Maybe the early rounds aren't very interesting but it allows them to cover a few lower league teams they wouldn't normally do. Then by the time you get to the quarter finals (which isn't too long, here we are now and it's only November) you get the remaining teams taking it seriously and there are always plenty of big teams involved.
If you look back at the list of finals in recent years, it's only Swansea vs Bradford that wouldn't be at least a half decent Super Sunday, usually with at least one big team in it. We've got all-Premier League semi-finals again, and as I say this week we've had big teams in the quarter finals. Add to that the fact the quarter and semi-finals are played in midwinter, in primetime, not opposite any other Premier League football - which is not the case with the FA Cup - and the final is in February rather than a boiling hot day in May, and I would suggest you get plenty of value for money from the League Cup. One obvious benefit for Sky is that the semi-finals are in January which is quite a quiet month for them with the FA Cup dominating. A few seasons ago the final was the highest rated thing on Sky Sports all year.
I might have agreed with you a decade or so ago when everyone put out weak teams and whichever middling Premier League club bothered to have a go won it, but in recent years it seems to have had a bit of a renaissance, I wonder if not partly thanks to the period in 2009-12 when it was live on the BBC.
I know it's not the fantastic competition, but it hardly seems a massive imposition on the season and it's a competition I want to see Liverpool doing well in. It's hardly the Checkatrade Trophy, is it?”
I also agree with all of this - other than the point about "basically getting it for free".
The last time the FL TV tender document was published it showed the League Cup being sold in 3 packages of its own - completely separately from the FL.
Even if the whole thing was sold together bidders would obviously take account of the League Cup - for all of the reasons you give - it's a very valuable set of rights. Sky currently pay the FL £95m per year in total for FL + League Cup rights - there is no way they would pay anything like that amount for the FL only.
The League Cup Final has always rated surprisingly highly for Sky - even when it hasn't featured marquee teams - and of course it usually does feature big teams. I think the Final has been Sky's highest rated programme of the year on many occasions actually - indeed I think it was almost certainly the highest rated programme (in terms of peak) on Sky last season - probably by some margin. I'm no good at searching this forum but am sure the rating was posted at the time - from memory I think it may have peaked at about 3.5m - an absolutely massive rating by Sky's standards.
If this year's final is Liverpool v Man Utd it will almost certainly be Sky's highest rated programme of the year again. That's obviously still a big if but they have already had fantastic value with this season's competition - two real heavyweight Liverpool and Man Utd last 16 ties, Liverpool and Man Utd again in the QFs and then Liverpool and Man Utd yet again separately in the SFs.