Sky's the Limit

When tensions run as high as they do in football it’s inevitable that a fully panoramic array of villains will emerge, from the cuddly Robbie Savage to Kyle Lafferty who’s just a cu… completely different kettle of fish. In recent times however, the real baddies aren’t the players but the businessmen; the suited Emperor Palpatines who provide the new money needed to tempt Vader into badge-kissing on the wrong side of the city (three months after signing a new five-year deal with your club).


But far worse than the owners who wade into looking for a quick buck and depart leaving decimated infrastructure and a bloated wage bill, is the true dark side of the force: the far less transient television companies and their ongoing battle over ownership of viewing rights. Does this free-market approach provide us fans with quality through competition or would it just be easier if one person everything? Is the real villain in top-flight football coverage the established companies who seek to extend their monopoly, or the smaller channels trying to cash in by convoluting the system and providing inferior service for their additional cost?


I think you would be incredibly naïve to fall back on the ‘traditional’ football fan’s argument that, ‘they’re my team, who are the big TV companies to charge me to watch them, those big wigs no nothing about football ECT’. The game has developed into a multimillion-pound industry (and has greatly benefited from it) that relies as much on attracting less avid, or ‘part-time’ fans as appeasing the die-hard season ticket holders.


It is unrealistic to expect terrestrial channels to being able to cater for all needs; in actual fact, the BBC has done admirably in keeping Match of the Day running so long (remember the dark, dark season when ITV’s The Premiership took over). It manages to provide that rare mix of extensive coverage and mostly valid opinions (Mark Lawrenson and Martin Keown aside) but lacks the funds to really cover everything. If, like me, you want to be able to watch some form of football every night of the week, and completely exile yourself from work, girlfriends, and responsibility in general on Saturday afternoons the Beeb can’t realistically be expected to invest license-payer’s money in helping you.


So some form of private investment is needed. And for nearly fifteen years Rupert Murdoch’s Sky has provided this admirably. There are always going to gripes from fans of the smaller teams that their needs are not sufficiently services, but the fact is that the vast majority of the big games in club football are covered and covered well. There aren’t any instances of ill-advised ad-breaks cutting off crucial goals either, or the signal cutting out halfway through a match (a problem anyone who has tried to stream international channels on the internet will be well aware of); generally you get to watch most matches in their entirety.


In the spirit of laissez faire though, competition developed, with Setanta the first to try undercutting Sky’s dominance. Dear God it was awful. Apart from lacking the personalities needed to compete with the likes of Jeff Sterling and Andy Gray, they invested their money in the rights to the SPL – a league then (and perhaps still) on the decline – while Sky boasted superior Premier League coverage supplemented with coverage of La Liga, which few would argue was more appealing to the casual fan than Dundee visiting Fir Park. And anyone who ever flicked over to Setanta Sports News will join me in raising a thankful toast to the company’s demise.


ESPN has enjoyed slightly more success since attempting the transition from the all American sports channel to some kind of hybrid that encourages the ‘special relationship’, but when you actual look at their schedule it is difficult avoid the conclusion that they are simply picking a carcass that Sky has pillaged fairly thoroughly. The priority is getting any game involving a ‘big club’ – which to the Americans means Chelsea or Man United – and the result is that Sky get the dog-fights, the derbies and the really important matches (i.e. everything anyone wants to see) while ESPN show teams parking the bus and trying not concede more than three at Old Trafford.


Why not just cap how much a company can charge viewers and put more games across the one network – introducing more channels if need be – instead of causing fans to miss games?  That way people could pay one company one price and see their team play more often with better coverage and analysis. Because frankly ESPN is a terrible investment for the average football fan, even at £7 a month.


There is however, I would argue the irrevocable need for some things to remain on terrestrial TV, namely a decent highlights show and European club football, as well as some of the internationals. Here again however, competition has detracted from the quality of service, rather than adding to it.


I think I speak for many when I say the Champions League and ITV are as synonymous as Match of the Day and the BBC: staying up late on a school night and not caring how limiting five channels could be because at least you got the Champions League. In much the same way the BBC dropped the ball by not snapping up what was given to them, and thus allowing The Premiership to run for a long, long season; ITV has blown their budget on luring Adrian Chiles away from MOTD 2, and subsequently has halved the number of CL games on offer, from a pretty measly two to a unacceptable one game (out of eight) a week.


They are obviously unaware that it doesn’t matter how good the pundit it fans want to watch football. And when the ‘expert’ analysis comes from Gareth Southgate, having a witty anchor is useless because all the jokes go over his massively elongated head. Similarly, Channel 5 has, for reasons unbeknown to anyone anywhere, bolstered their all star commentary team this year with the addition of David Pleat, who even ITV rejected.


Why can’t ITV replace X-Factor and Corrie repeats with that second game a week and then you could have all the European games terrestrial TV gets over their four channels? Ditch Southgate, get Marcel Desailly on the couch more often, double viewing figures, and give nine-year boys whose parents don’t have Sky something to talk about at school on Thursday mornings.


The rights to the FA Cup have historically only be sold to one station – either the BBC or ITV – and as a result, the games are spaced out so there’re usually three or four over the weekend, everyone gets to watch it them. Don’t make things more difficult that they need to be: one competition needs one station showing it live across multiple channels with decent coverage and analysis, highlights later on terrestrial TV if necessary.


During the World Cup everyone I know, when they had a choice, watched the BBC coverage rather than ITV, because there weren’t any breaks and Mick McCarthy was commentating. Football fans don’t want choice; we'd rather be able to watch our team play and listen to someone who knows something about the game tell us what’s going on. Most of us accept that to watch all or most of the games we’re going to have to pay: let us pay one company one price for decent coverage instead of having to fork out for extra for substandard service.


The real villain of football as far as I’m concerned is he (or she) who prevents fans from following it and enjoying watching the beautiful game. Let’s move away from the culture of purely pay-per-view coverage – not an impossible eventuality if you consider the Ukraine vs. England match last year and the Utrecht vs. Celtic match this week – and accept that if we’re going to have to pay for it, lets pay someone who knows what they’re doing and can at least give us a good standard of service. It may not be in the spirit of equality but established networks have the experience, the personnel and the funds to do things properly, and that to me is more important than paying some cowboys to do a half-arsed job.


For the casual terrestrial fan, more European games on ITV and ITV alone, and some kind law outlawing the removal of Match of the Day would surely go along way to making sure more can watch and enjoying watching the game. For the more avid fans, if a monopoly over football viewing rights must exist, lets at least make it a proper one. Don’t allow ESPN to spoil one weekend in four, and take your money for the pleasure; if I’m going to have to pay someone, Sky’s the limit thanks.

The Curtain Rises...

“Oh, it’s good to have it back!” purrs Sky Sport’s Andy Gray over the first game of the new Premier League season, Tottenham vs. Manchester City. Something about the Scot’s delivery – part assertion, part reassurance – means he could be telling you Marlon Harewood is a decent shout at 6/1 for the golden boot and you would consider a five-pound flutter. This remark however needed no such persuasive power; after three bleak months for all but Spanish and New Zealand football fans, the real show has started.


Despite the perennial clichés (‘it’s a funny old game’, ‘you never can tell in football’, ‘still early doors yet’) the opening day results are furiously scrutinised by overactive fans and pundits alike, more in a flurry of child-like excitement at the PL’s return you sense, than because of real conviction of opinion. But are performances at this early stage a premonition of things to come or simply a case the summer hangover being run off? Most fans will sagely point out minute qualities or flaws that they assure will become the bricks on which success is built or from which ambitions crumble, yet as the dust settles on Gameweek One, what can actually be deduced from the opening results?


The opening at White Hart Lane was the best indication of both the opening-day excitement and the off-field distractions that make any predictions in the middle of August spurious. Spurs were buzzing after their season last year and the Champions League looming tantalizingly round the corner; Man City’s players looked discombobulated having only just emerged from the club’s frantically spinning revolving transfer door – which if anything, will spin faster as a 50 man squad is filtered through £200 million’s worth of new talent – were only communicating by reading each others names off the backs of their shirts. Half the multimillion pound bric-a-brac squad will have to decide whether being surplus to requirements is something better enjoyed on your arse for £70,000 a week in Manchester, or whether actually getting your game is worth going back to minimum wage in the Championship or SPL. Tough times.


The only real conclusion I drew was that both sides will play worse this season and win. The home team played with energy and excitement but after a bright first half seemed to be more focused on Young Boys on Tuesday rather than their Mancunian opposition. The visitors meanwhile relied on the stalwart (in City terms anyway) centre-half partnership of Kolo Toure and Vincent Company augmenting Joe Hart’s gung-ho goalkeeping, leaping around enjoying himself in the sun and riding his luck bit on the way a well-deserved clean sheet. A similar stalemate between Arsenal and Liverpool is reminiscent of a scenario played out multiple times in South Africa – two teams who wanted to not lose more than they wanted to win – and one that, hopefully, will not characterise prospective Champions League 2011 candidates throughout the season.


No such worries for teams vying not to be playing in the Championship next year. Blackpool hitting four past Wigan briefly put them top of the table, but even the omniscient Andy Gray using Jedi mind-tricks would struggle to convince anyone but Ian Holloway that they are going straight back down. Remember when Burnley beat Man United at Turfmoor last season? Their ‘fortress’ wasn’t so impenetrable when West Ham, Wolves, Wigan and Portsmouth won there. Or when Hull were Champions League contenders in October after winning at the Emirates and White Hart Lane? They then lost eight out of their last ten matches and only stayed up because the teams below them were worse, a luxury they were not afforded two seasons in a row. While it’s brilliant that Blackpool can hammer a team on the opening day, Holloway’s promise to play football (because “mountain-climbers take risks”) draws ominous comparisons with Tony Mowbray’s West Brom team of two years ago, who tried to pass like Arsenal but defended like, well, West Brom. It’s all well and good being the underdogs in sunny September, but when you’re away at Blackburn in darkest February you sense the most of the novelty will have worn off (though Holloway’s sound bites remain evergreen).


Aston Villa’s comfortable win over West Ham could be a misleadingly optimistic start to what promises to be a very difficult season for the Brummies. Having a caretaker manager, who if he really wanted the job would have asked for it by now, can only upset the rhythm of a squad who thrived off repetition. For the second season in a row the club’s outstanding English midfielder has been sold to Man City, the money hasn’t been reinvested prudently (or at all in Milner’s case), and now the Irish maverick who masterminded Villa’s ascendancy has upped sticks. Cue the disruption of a teamsheet carved in stone – including arguably the best centre-back pairing in the league last year, Jimmy Collins and Richard Dunne – with fringe players like Curtis Davis entering stage right, players who have yet to realise that the reason they didn’t play much last year is not because the manager didn’t like them, but because they spent more time whining and blinging themselves up than they did getting their heads down and training.


So while Villa won on the opening day but will most likely struggle, Everton lost but still look promising to push on as the perennial dark horses for a top four finish. Mikel Arteta, apart from learning ‘God Save the Queen’ in case Fabio comes calling, has pledged his future to Goodison and will continue to spearhead a formidable midfield there, for the foreseeable future anyway. Arsenal hammered Everton last year yet Moyes’ men still only just missed out on denying Liverpool the last Europa League spot; an uncharacteristic error from Timmy Howard is not nearly enough to suggest that they can't go one step further this year.


Two results that very few would argue flattered to deceive involved the champions and the runners up, Manchester United and Chelsea. Nine goals without reply between them, continuity of personality on and off the pitch over the summer, and an uninspiring World Cup across both squads mean a resignation has sunk in among much of the footballing world that the ‘big two’ will remain unassailable for another season at least. But a little birdie with a thick Scottish accent told me that Marlon Harewood’s going to bag thirty this season so lets see how things pan out.