TV money in fitba’ still a game of two halves . . .
MY earliest recollection of watching sport was when the mates and I discovered the first primitive etchings of an Old Firm match in the caves at Busby Glen.
Television sport was a primordial beast then, not the slick predator it has become, snapping up rights and chewing up terrestrial broadcasters. It may seem shocking to those under, say, 50 but there was a time when live football was as rare as the BBC starting its Open coverage with the first tee-off. There was a time when TV sport on a Saturday was motorcross, wrestling, racing and the second half of Leigh v Widnes.
Now the viewer can choose, the viewer can demand. People of my age believe it is very nice of the Beeb to put on some golf. Those brought up on satellite television are, quite properly, irritated by missing any live action.
It is a revolution in entertainment but also in economics. The biggest sporting move in my lifetime has been the influx of television money. A few years ago I stood in Bristol, Connecticut, and marvelled at the technological sophistication of the ESPN headquarters.
This is a company that started by showing live horseshoe-throwing or something and has become a behemoth. It pays just short of $2bn a year for NFL games as other broadcasters chip in another $1bn plus. It pays for other sports, too, but the NFL bucks tell the sporting story of the last 50 years and cause many to speculate on just where sport is heading and how much it can garner in rights money.
Much of the debate is shrouded in the nonsense about whether NFL players or Barclays Premier League players are worth what they are paid. The short answer is that capitalism says yes and until the ghost of Joe Stalin conducts negotiations, that is the way it will stay.
The more intriguing questions are how long can this boom be sustained and what is its effect on the wider world of sport?
The first question is extraordinarily difficult to answer. But the ball is in the clubs’ court. Sky simply cannot envisage a life without Premier League football. ESPN, for all its financial muscle, knows that the NFL is key to its subscription figures. The situation is further complicated by companies such as BT emptying its deep pockets so that it can use fitba’ to sell broadband.
Searching for the latest missive from my probation officer, I have daily to wade through promotional material from companies offering me broadband with free fitba’, hunners of channels and a new prostate. I may have lied about the last, mixing it up with copious revenue streams. But until I have found my medication I cannot be sure.
The capitalist model insists, then, that everyone is a winner. The consumer makes his or her choice, the telly companies make a profit and the clubs are weighed in with bags marked Swag.
But, then again… It could all go the way of that banking system thingummyjig that we are still paying for through the nose and every other available orifice.
What is certain is that there is now a bias in financial power that has tilted the world of sport. Such are the sums pocketed by the leagues of England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France that it is almost absurd to consider a side from any other nation now winning the Champions League. This is a cultural shift that has widespread implications.
Those of us brought up on the triumphs of Celtic, Feyenoord, Ajax, PSV Eindhoven, Benfica, Porto, Red Star Belgrade and Steaua Bucharest in Europe’s top trophy know that these days are so far in the past they are almost quaint. Porto, of course, won in 2004. This victory is now so much the equivalent of ancient history that there is a suspicion that the Portuguese turned out in togas.
European football thus has a hierarchy of glamour clubs that will contest the Champions League. This is good telly. It is not good for wider competition but that reservation is but a whisper silenced by a cascade of bank notes. And it doesn’t happen in the NFL. The aim there is to give every club an even break in terms of recruitment and TV money. It is not a perfect system but it is one that strives to roll out an equal playing field.
Back on Planet Football, the policy is to reward the rich and sideline the poorer clubs. This has the effect of satisfying television viewers but the potential of making many solely television viewers in countries with weaker leagues.
The SPFL must take whatever it can from TV and we must not be dismissive of any revenue, any attempt to take the game beyond these shores. It is why the £500,000 a year from the Chinese must be welcomed.
But it is perhaps important to note that is about two weeks of Wayne Rooney’s salary. The gap is making the Grand Canyon look a mere crack in the ceiling.
And an admission charge on the Busby Glen etchings ain’t going to close it.
ON MONDAY Matthew Lindsay
The SPFL’s £500,000 a year from the Chinese should be welcomed. But it is important to note that is about two weeks of Rooney’s salary