Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Watching the ties, old school
THE FA Cup gives football back to the nation this weekend - with over half the viewers who are watching terrestrial TV when 10 of the third-round ties are being broadcast live expected to tune in.
ITV and the BBC have been granted exclusive coverage – and millions will take up the opportunity to watch the oldest club competition in the world.
Many see it as a welcome relief to the way sports has increasingly been brought into their homes over the last 30 years, with armchair fans asked to pay hundreds of pounds to access satellite and streaming services to watch the Premier League and Champions League.
Even a Super Sunday glamour game on Sky will be watched by no more than a couple of million subscribers.
The last time ITV had exclusive rights to the FA Cup, 10.6million viewers switched on to watch Manchester City’s victory over Manchester United in the 2011 semi-final.
When United faced Crawley Town earlier in the competition, the figure still hit 9.1million.
These are numbers that Sky, BT Sports and Amazon can only dream of.
Top commentator Clive Tyldesley believes the Football Association deserves huge credit for putting the fans before money when it comes to keeping the Cup and England’s most important internationals on terrestrial telly.
Tyldesley said: “The FA Cup is a national treasure but the FA has realised that to keep it alive it has to be seen. And it has to be seen by a lot of people.
“I don’t know what kind of money the FA could have got by going elsewhere, but it wouldn’t have been insignificant.
“These games get watched by six, eight or 10 million people – as opposed to one million.
“They are keeping it alive by making sure viewers, especially kids, are given access to watch.”