On Monday at work my boss had to go visit one of our suppliers in Manchester. When he returned he told me of his conversations with a couple of their employees, one a Man City fan and one a Man Utd fan; both were worried because they had heard that sky were losing money and/or its profits were down due to people using new technology to watch sky sports for free. The potential outcome of this would be that sky would stop putting the billions in to sport especially football and the premier league would lose its massive tv income and would have a massive effect on their clubs. As I am not up on any form of modern technology, it was briefly explained to me about streaming and android boxes which is technically illegal but difficult for sky etc to make prosecutions. i was telling one of the lads from the shopfloor and he told me had one of these android boxes and watched sky sports for free including the BFC vs Forrest game. I keep seeing on many postings on here fans saying football is ruined by sky, rich foreign owners etc, then if the above comes true then wages would tumble foreign stars would go to warmer climes( if that the correct expression) and China would be the place to go for the foreign stars. In addition we would have a more level playing field financially similar to before sky got hold of football and buying a English football club would no longer be attractive to foreign business men. Have any of you good people out there heard anything similar? and what do you think the outcome would be if sky pulled out of football?
I've no idea whether there's even the remotest chance of this happening, however it can't come fecking soon enough. Sadly if it did I suspect there'd be other networks (BT spring to mind) prepared to step in and sustain all the Premier League troughers in the manner to which they've become accustomed.
Make sure you leave the other cheek free for when the news is announced and we plunder Manchester City for their best players.
it would be akin to the ITV digital collapse that really hurt a lot of league clubs including us! No way could the premier league teams keep paying what they do without the sky money.
What might happen if the current system collapses would be individual teams negotiating TV deals in India, China, Thailand etc, like what happens in Spain with Barcelona and Real Madrid. Still, if it were to bring the majority of the Premier League closer to being in line with the rest of the English system below, it might not be a bad thing. Plus, if things do start going tits-up, then I reckon one of the first things to be cut would be parachute payments (opens champagne).
If Sky does pull the plug, football teams will go bust left right and centre. Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
I very much doubt Sky are going to pull the plug on football anytime soon. They're current £4.17bn contract runs until 2016-2019. Last years operating profit to June 2016 was up 12% to £1,558 Revenue from UK and Ireland is over £8bn If Sky were feeling the pinch, they just wouldn't over bid for the 2019 onward contract. But assuming Sky did pull the plug, all these dodgy Android boxes wouldn't have a source for their football streams either. As the vast majority are just re-badged, resold Sky broadcasts.
Dont hold your breath British football is massive in Asia as well as in the UK. If the revenues are falling by 2019 when the current contracts end the bids for the next contract will fall but the idea that the plug would be pulled is laughable - worst case is the clubs will see a small reduction in TV income but I would be surprised
I noticed after I'd posted but was too late to edit. Should have read £1,558 million. But you knew that right
The bubble will burst one day, but not in the near future.. Its a much needed distraction, that's why clubs are allowed to run up so much debut. The football distraction (and other distractions) are needed to prevent people paying attention to what is actually going on...
Everything goes in cycles. It's inevitable things will get good at some point then bad. People should live in the moment more. We've been promoted, won twice at Wembley, gone from bottom of league 1 to top championship and developed about £30m of talent. In 12 months. All on a league 1 budget, no CEO and barely half an owner. These are actually good times by our standards. More people should enjoy them while they last. I guarantee there will be plenty of seasons to complain about