TV auction falls flat for Football League Botham beef over Ben
THE jury will be out for some time on whether the Football League’s new £120million-a-year TV rights contract with Sky is a good deal for the 72 clubs.
On the plus side, they have guaranteed TV income until 2024 by signing a five-year extension to the deal that was to end after next season.
And the clubs will have unprecedented freedom to stream or televise their own matches outside Sky’s live games and the protected Saturday 3pm fixtures.
But there will be critics, led of course by Derby owner Mel Morris, about the length of time the EFL have committed themselves to Sky amid an ever-changing broadcast landscape. And the near 36 per cent rise in the value of the contract will also be seen as disappointing.
The EFL admitted yesterday in their letter to clubs: ‘Bids were lower than we anticipated.’
It was revealed that BT Sport had initially put more money on the table than Sky, but declined to up their three-season offer, leaving Sky to come back with £600m over five years.
Crucially, the EFL were not able to engage both pay-TV operators in a competitive auction, despite the ECB managing to do this with the cricket TV rights tender three months earlier. But only after the outcome of forthcoming sports rights tenders will it be possible to evaluate how well the EFL have done this time.
Meanwhile, the BBC are back in the bidding for Football League highlights following difficulties with Channel 5, where the Saturday 9pm start of the show has not worked.
LANCASHIRE
fans will have been bemused to see Paul Allott (right) part of Sky Sports’ coverage of Warwickshire v Essex yesterday rather than in Somerset with Lancashire. After all, he is widely perceived to be Lancashire’s new director of cricket. However, it emerges that Allott has not yet been officially announced in that role and won’t start until October. FOR the first time in post-war World Cup history, it looks like there will not be an English referee at the tournament next summer in Russia.
The shortlist was drawn up by FIFA two years ago, with Mark Clattenburg, who has since retired from the Premier League list, as the English representative. There was some hope Clattenburg might represent Saudi Arabia, where he now administers referees. But Clattenburg also works as a pundit for BT Sport — sharing the role with Graham Poll — ruling him out of a FIFA call-up.
FA referees chief David Elleray has appealed to FIFA to add another English official to their referees team, but there is said to be little hope of that happening.
WHEN
even those who know Roy Hodgson well are unsure if he has recovered from being in charge of the England team who were knocked out of Euro 2016 by Iceland, it’s beyond belief that he is taking over at Crystal Palace. Hodgson could lose the dressing room as quickly as Frank de Boer. DURHAM chairman Ian Botham has let the England set-up know exactly what he thinks about the decision to rest Ben Stokes from the Twenty20 match against world champions West Indies at Chester-le-Street on Saturday.
Local hero Stokes, central to promoting the sport, had a chance to get revenge for being hit for four sixes in the World T20 final last year.
However, it transpires that Botham will also miss the game because of another commitment. The club said yesterday Botham wasn’t expected to be there and wasn’t on the guest list.
ENGLAND
manager Gareth Southgate avoided the curse of the Football Writers’ golf day at Stoke Park on Monday by declining an invite. It was in his round at last year’s event that Sam Allardyce discovered he had been the victim of a newspaper sting which would cost him his job. Meanwhile, the FWA have found new sponsors in non-League