h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Bundesliga have been cleared by the Cartel office to sell football broadcast/marketing rights to more than one TV company.

On the face of it, it seems like a great idea because in theory competition means that the consumer should be able to get the best price.

In practice I guess it will work more like in the uK where there is one league (for example the Premier League) and two or more broadcasters get the rights to show live games.

But they don't get the rights to all games, they get the rights to packages (I'm not sure how it's split up in the PL - do they split it per team?). Which means that if a fan wants to watch all the games, they have to fork out for more than one subscription.

And as I understand pay TV broadcasters you can't say to, say, Sky "I want football. Nothing else" sport also comes as an add on to a basic package. (is that how it works with BT too?)

And so in the end instead of having one Sky (or whichever broadcaster wins the rights) subscription, you have to have two.

has it worked out more or less expensive? or has it stayed roughly the same price-wise?

Supplementary question: in the UK matches get moved around willy nilly to please the broadcasters. Is there a danger that matches might be scheduled to clash?

Not sure how the Sky/BT money is divided between clubs, but I suspect the richer clubs get more of it - it may be commercially confidential.

Yes, the BT Sport channels show other sports too (as does Sky). You can't get a football-only package, to my knowledge.

I don't have Sky, so can't advise on their latest pricing, but it's package-based, and you'd generally go for a sport bundle to give you the main sport channels. Not sure if any games are additionally pay-per-view (like Boxing), but there may be other routes to watch them (don't the bigger clubs have their own channels?)

Matches will certainly clash from time to time. These days, your service provider has a plethora of catch-up offerings or clever digiboxes to record those games. Linear broadcasting is not dead yet, but it's shrinking rapidly.

so in the end the viewer loses out because they have to pay for more stuff they don't want?

Interesting.
thanks

This excellent article explains the TV rights money distribution between clubs:

http://www.totalsportek.com/money/premier-league-tv-rights-money-distribution/

In short, 50% of the money (5.5 billion over the next 3 seasons) is distributed equally amongst the 20 clubs. A further 3 billion over overseas rights is divided equally.

25% of the domestic 5.5 billion is allocated on a sliding scale depending on the clubs' final positions.

The other 25% is allocated according to the number of televised matches.

I think the graphic below shows the estimated annual income between a club at the top (146 million) and one at the bottom (97 million).

If there's a big match that won't be on the Beeb, I go to the pub (next door)

number of televised matches is interesting, Icy. Does that mean not all matches in the PL and Championship are televised?

Here the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga are all broadcast. That means one 1. BL game on Friday, 2 on sunday (one at 15:30 one at 17:30), 1 late on saturday (18:30 kick off) and all the rest at 15:30 on Saturday.

The 2nd division has different timings (they aren't allowed to clash with the 1st, and they have a Monday game at 18:30 too)

But they are all shown and the BL try to rotate who plays when so that they all get a go at Friday, Saturday PM and each Sunday slot. The fixtures are fixed only for which day - 34 games, first weekend is called day one, last day is Day 34) and unless something serious happens you never get what happens in the UK with, say, the top club having played 30 and the 2nd having 2 games in hand.

all cup games are televised on Sky as are all CL and Europa League. all except the final are on Tuesdays/Wednesdays

Free TV shows one cup game per round (guess who get's most of the coverage... *cough*Bayern*cough* - or at least it feels like it) and the final. I think they show the CL and EL finals too.

Fixtures are finalised when they know who has midweek games (cup or any european games) and they usually get to play on the Sunday if they have had a Thursday fixture, and if they have a Tuesday match coming up they try to put them on Friday. But that's all the flexibility there is (in fact with German teams doing will in Europe the 1st division is faced with a Monday match which is causing ructions. If Sky were making the fixture list there would be protests marching on Berlin.

It's a complicated business, isn't it?

Typically, the EPL has a Saturday lunchtime fixture, four or five afternoon in the afternoon and one in the evening. Not sure if any in the afternoon are televised, but the early/late ones are.

Then on Sunday there are two or three more fixtures, generally staggered and televised. Often there's a televised Monday night fixture too.

Televised means on Sky or BT for EPL matches. Terrestrial TV here shows EPL highlights only (BBC), a few of the FA Cup games in each round (BBC) and maybe one each of the CL and EL matches in each round featuring an English club (ITV) - the others will be on Sky/BT.

You may find some foreign johnnies playing football on other digital terrestrial channels from time to time (Wolfsburg were on BT Showcase last night).


On to the fixture scheduling - we don't really have a hang-up about teams having matches in hand - our weather's pretty poor and matches get postponed for one thing, but there are also a couple of domestic cup competitions running too, as well as European competitions. If anything, the psychology gets interesting when teams are a few points behind with matches in hand - can they handle the pressure?


Similarly, I don't think teams here really care when they play - the money's pretty good after all - but some gripe if they've had a Thursday EL tie in Moscow, as there's little time to prepare for the weekend EPL game.

Clubs make more fuss about losing players to international fixtures, especially friendlies. They often sustain injuries.

I don't think it's fair on the players or the club to have them coming back from Toofarawayistan on a Thursday night and play again on Saturday. It's deffo not good for the fans who pay good money to then see a load of stumbling zombies.

I also feel that when you get to the end of a season where you have matches piling up so you're playing every two days or whetever just to get up to speed, gives your more rubbish (because it comes from having a good cup run as much as anything, I think, in 2 cups) opponents an advantage if your own team have had the legs run off them. (Boro a good example this season I think)

The cup thing in England is out of hand. The League cup should exclude the PL for the simple fact that the PL is its own entity. (Is the Championship also separate from the rest of the league?)
The German FA cup (the DFB Pokal) is interesting. As I mentioned it's played midweek which frees up the weekends for the league.

The Bundesliga had an interesting proposition which the smaller teams have dismissed out of hand: similar to the FA cup the big teams only enter in the 3rd round. The small - including amateur - want their chance to play Bayern, Dortmund and Gladbach* in the cup so for the moment it's staying. The dortmund trainer thought it a most excellent idea and suggested they join in the semi-final. But it was a bit

We also, of course have a smaller league which allows for a winter break so that there isn't all that silly last minute shuffling of matches which an idiot can see will be postponed due to weather (any matches in the north of England in Jan/Feb for example).

But anyway football, eh?

*mostly so they can knock us out

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