Are Sky and BT ruining british sporting interests?
Discussion
May have been discussed before or not..... but once up on a time all sport coverage shown on TV was accessible by most who owned a TV and payed a license (or not in some cases).
The likes of F1 used to be on BBC, rugby on ITV and BBC, football also on ITV and BBC, and just look now at Boxing....etc. etc.
These days you have to subscribe to the amount of an additional few hundred pounds each year in order to watch these sports. If you have an interest in say F1 and Football for example, you'd now have to subscribe to two pay per view services.
This inevitably reduces people's ability to view these sports and therefore to keep an interest in them.
I stopped my subscription to Sky TV about 6 months ago because I refuse to pay to watch adverts and programs that were just repeated constantly throughout the months. Paying just to watch F1 especially when F1 is going through a 'boring' period and also with additional 'backward' development to please the greenies for next year's season I have now lost interest in the sport.
I have also lost interest in Premiership Rugby and also the small amount of football that I used to watch, mainly because I can spend the money on better things in my life instead of paying to see more adverts. (Which is something I've never been able to comprehend - if its a pay per view service and the subscription is for the content, then why do Sky also need to have adverts to fund their content? - its not ITV is it).
Anyways, what are the views of the wider PH viewers?
The likes of F1 used to be on BBC, rugby on ITV and BBC, football also on ITV and BBC, and just look now at Boxing....etc. etc.
These days you have to subscribe to the amount of an additional few hundred pounds each year in order to watch these sports. If you have an interest in say F1 and Football for example, you'd now have to subscribe to two pay per view services.
This inevitably reduces people's ability to view these sports and therefore to keep an interest in them.
I stopped my subscription to Sky TV about 6 months ago because I refuse to pay to watch adverts and programs that were just repeated constantly throughout the months. Paying just to watch F1 especially when F1 is going through a 'boring' period and also with additional 'backward' development to please the greenies for next year's season I have now lost interest in the sport.
I have also lost interest in Premiership Rugby and also the small amount of football that I used to watch, mainly because I can spend the money on better things in my life instead of paying to see more adverts. (Which is something I've never been able to comprehend - if its a pay per view service and the subscription is for the content, then why do Sky also need to have adverts to fund their content? - its not ITV is it).
Anyways, what are the views of the wider PH viewers?
I agree..
if you liked Soccer you had to pay a lot to Sky. Now BT as well... most soccer fans I know don't bother, so they have lost some of their audience .
F1 was getting boring so don't miss not having Sky. Saw a bit last night in BBC, still boring!
So the fans lose out, also the sports are losing out. Audience figures must be minuscule ..
if you liked Soccer you had to pay a lot to Sky. Now BT as well... most soccer fans I know don't bother, so they have lost some of their audience .
F1 was getting boring so don't miss not having Sky. Saw a bit last night in BBC, still boring!
So the fans lose out, also the sports are losing out. Audience figures must be minuscule ..
There are two sides to the story really.....you certainly can't blame TV for F1 being boring. It was dull during Shumacher's time at Ferrari too!
Premier League football is a much better product than it was twenty years ago.....we have some of the world's best players playing in the PL. That said it's made the England team weaker.
Cricket....the county game has suffered as the money has meant the ECB can afford to centrally contract England players but I suppose the flip side is that T20 has energised the county game and that was born out of a product for TV.
Rugby....the Heineken Cup exists because of the demand from advertisers and the TV companies...I doubt it would exist if it wasn't for TV money. Best club competition in the world. Six Nations hasn't really changed but you need to pay to watch some of it.
Sports like Golf and Tennis haven't really changed but they get much more coverage than they used to. 30 years ago all you could watch was Wimbledon, Queens, The Open and the World Matchplay.
One thing that is for sure is that you can watch a hell of a lot more and see more of your team than you could 30 years ago. When I was a kid Rugby Special used to feature one or two teams at 5.0pm on a Sunday afternoon and MoTD/The Big Match had highlights of three games. You might go for weeks without seeing your team and lower league games never got coverage. Yes there Grandstand or World of Sport but some of the sports covered were pretty village....I mean the cornerstone of World of Sport was wrestling with Big Daddy.
Premier League football is a much better product than it was twenty years ago.....we have some of the world's best players playing in the PL. That said it's made the England team weaker.
Cricket....the county game has suffered as the money has meant the ECB can afford to centrally contract England players but I suppose the flip side is that T20 has energised the county game and that was born out of a product for TV.
Rugby....the Heineken Cup exists because of the demand from advertisers and the TV companies...I doubt it would exist if it wasn't for TV money. Best club competition in the world. Six Nations hasn't really changed but you need to pay to watch some of it.
Sports like Golf and Tennis haven't really changed but they get much more coverage than they used to. 30 years ago all you could watch was Wimbledon, Queens, The Open and the World Matchplay.
One thing that is for sure is that you can watch a hell of a lot more and see more of your team than you could 30 years ago. When I was a kid Rugby Special used to feature one or two teams at 5.0pm on a Sunday afternoon and MoTD/The Big Match had highlights of three games. You might go for weeks without seeing your team and lower league games never got coverage. Yes there Grandstand or World of Sport but some of the sports covered were pretty village....I mean the cornerstone of World of Sport was wrestling with Big Daddy.
Cheib said:
I mean the cornerstone of World of Sport was wrestling with Big Daddy.
Don't forget that staple of every betting man's Sat afternoon with Dickie Davies - the ITV Seven ... Thing is there's sport every day all over thw world and it's on 24/7 so why waste (in broadcasting terms) a Sat afternoon with sport on the old channels - put some film on or whatever -(I couldn't tell you what in on the Beeb or ITV on a Sat now between one and half four.
I do miss the vidiprinter though - bringing the scores in at 20 to five - note - 20 to five - not 10 to five or even 5 to 5 as it is now ...
Frank Bough reading them out etc - Mansfield 1 - vidiprinter hovering ............................ Chesterfield 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6GK42UpCM
Edited by uk66fastback on Thursday 21st November 13:38
I think TV has ruined sport over the years with e attitude of "if its not a cash cow we don't want it" or advertising something and not showing it (europsort). I grew up in the days where you could watch all 5 days of the Lombard RAC rally on BBC2, yet football was still shown and sky was a dream on Maxwells eye over here.
Then money came in with Sky and others and now BT sport and most major events and mainstream sports are pay per views. This isn't just the fault of TV, although their cash is, the sports themselves must carry some of the responsibility of the reduced air time.
I used to watch eurosport for the Biathlon, and during Jan, the Aussie open is on and you end up with 18 hours of tennis a day despite what has been scheduled.
How many of you know that GB has Biathlon athletes that compete at world and Olympic level? They are funded by the Army (all athletes are soldiers) and another key sponser, and pay their own way to get to competitions. Yet the UK sports council turn them down every year for funding as they don't bring home medals. To give you an idea, the BBU spend 250k a year on the team, and the Germans €10m, guess who has the better success rate.
Its got that bad, that the BBU has put an announcment out that as of the end of this season its no more, which means no Team GB athletes for Biathlon past Sochi.
If you are interested, here is the offical statement
http://www.britishbiathlon.com/PDFs/Web%20Statemen...
Thankfully I don't watch any of the high money sports so it all being on PPV doesn't bother me, but announcements like that, do boil my urine. I know what its like to be self funded as I am for my sport (archery), only the olymic team get full funding, the compound side get the training but have to fund themselves to get anywhere. I shoot field archery so have no contact with Archery GB who run the olympic training, so if I want to to compete in the world champs next year I need to find 3k and it also assumes I can get the time off work.
Then money came in with Sky and others and now BT sport and most major events and mainstream sports are pay per views. This isn't just the fault of TV, although their cash is, the sports themselves must carry some of the responsibility of the reduced air time.
I used to watch eurosport for the Biathlon, and during Jan, the Aussie open is on and you end up with 18 hours of tennis a day despite what has been scheduled.
How many of you know that GB has Biathlon athletes that compete at world and Olympic level? They are funded by the Army (all athletes are soldiers) and another key sponser, and pay their own way to get to competitions. Yet the UK sports council turn them down every year for funding as they don't bring home medals. To give you an idea, the BBU spend 250k a year on the team, and the Germans €10m, guess who has the better success rate.
Its got that bad, that the BBU has put an announcment out that as of the end of this season its no more, which means no Team GB athletes for Biathlon past Sochi.
If you are interested, here is the offical statement
http://www.britishbiathlon.com/PDFs/Web%20Statemen...
Thankfully I don't watch any of the high money sports so it all being on PPV doesn't bother me, but announcements like that, do boil my urine. I know what its like to be self funded as I am for my sport (archery), only the olymic team get full funding, the compound side get the training but have to fund themselves to get anywhere. I shoot field archery so have no contact with Archery GB who run the olympic training, so if I want to to compete in the world champs next year I need to find 3k and it also assumes I can get the time off work.
Gassing Station | Sports | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff