Thursday, 3 February 2011

The Dangers of the 3pm Kick-offs on TV

I've been following the case of Karen Murphy and her battle against Sky Sports for about a year or so now. For those that are unaware, Ms Murphy owns a pub on Fawcett Road in Portsmouth, The Red, White and Blue, just up the road from where I used to live.

The case revolves around Ms Murphy, BSkyB television, a Greek broadcaster called Nova and a decoder box. Basically, as we all know, pubs pay to screen football on their premises, with the money going largely to Sky as they are the broadcaster of English Premier League Football in the UK. However, other countries have the broadcast right for the Premier League (and other leagues across Europe) for their own countries; Nova was the broadcaster for English football in Greece.

However, many pubs across the UK, buy a decoder box so they can receive the satellite signal from places such as Greece and Morocco as it is far cheaper than paying BSkyB, some £800 a year for Nova compared to between £1000 to £6000 (depending on who you read) a year for Sky. For this, Sky sued Ms Murphy for breach of copyright law and the corporation won the case with Ms Murphy paying around £8000 in fines and costs.

The case has now been taken to the European Court of Justice where today, the Advocate General, Julianne Kolkott, has said that the way broadcasters only broadcast to their own countries, with rights being sold per country from bodies such as the Premier League, is "contrary to EU law" as it is questionable whether a rights holder can sell their content on a country-by-country basis in the entity that is the EU. Largely, this had led to leagues maximising the value at which they can sell their rights. Overall, the Advocate General states that the current system constitutes a serious impairment to the freedom to provide services.

In the context of EU law, this can have a large effect as it may set a precedent whereby rights holders cannot sell their rights to one broadcaster per country, a form of protectionism as the holders can charge whatever they feel like pretty much, leading to more competition and lower prices for the consumer.

However, other EU broadcasters do not have the same restriction placed on them as BSkyB do to NOT be able to broadcast any game played in England at 3pm on a Saturday as, quite rightly, they believe that this will lead to a drop in attendances at over games as people stay in to watch the bigger teams play. If this case changes this, the implications could be huge for English football.

Whilst taking Sky down a peg or two is as nice a feeling for me as much as the next person, this rule is very important to English football as without it, the attendances, particularly at lower league level, could fall dramatically as more people decide to stay at home to watch Arsenal or United leading to real financial issues in an already very tight fiscal circumstance at that level. Less punters through the turnstiles leads to less income which may well lead to clubs going out of existence.

Furthermore, kids are unlikely to want to go to Edgeley Park or Gigg Lane on a cold Saturday afternoon with their dads or uncles or mates when they can sit in the warm watching events unfold at Old Trafford, leading to the future fanbases of smaller clubs also dwindling.

Clearly, in the EU, customers have the right to pay for the service they choose and should be able to choose the cheapest, particularly in the case of pubs who need to save all the cash they can, but the flip side is that the impact this case could have on English football is huge, especially with the possible decrease in the amount the leagues will be able to charge for their content, this money being the lifeblood for all teams in England, Premier League to League Two.

However, it should be stressed at this time that the advice of the Advocate General has no legal binding to it and this case has plenty of twist and turns in it yet, not over til the fat lady sings, only at half time etc. etc. etc.

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