New Premier League Deal....

[Arginald Valleywater]

Anyone else find the sums involved rather obscene?

[Porn Baron]

It's only ?10 Million to show a game. Rooney will have to make do with half a million a game for now.

[Milk Tray Man]

Arginald Valleywater wrote:

> Anyone else find the sums involved rather obscene?

Yes. I'd be happier if more of the TV money trickled down to the grass roots of the game (as we were assured it would when football sold its soul in the early '90s) but according to the BBC news last night, only about 1% of it does. Football is just a "product" now and the premier league a "brand", the whole thing is characterized mainly by greed, with the sporting aspect of it just a means to an end.

[number 6]

bring back the days before sky fcking sports....god i hate everything about them

[MrTickle]

I really don't understand why fans of Premier league clubs bother going to watch live games now. You're paying anything up to ?50 a ticket and you pretty much know what you're going to get by the end of the season. Only 2 or 3 clubs can win the League (The ones with the most money). The rest of them just make the numbers up.

[Milk Tray Man]

MrTickle wrote:

> I really don't understand why fans of Premier league clubs
> bother going to watch live games now. You're paying anything up
> to ?50 a ticket and you pretty much know what you're going to
> get by the end of the season. Only 2 or 3 clubs can win the
> League (The ones with the most money). The rest of them just
> make the numbers up.

It baffles me as well MrTickle, it's pretty much 3 sub-leagues in one, and all very tiresomely predictable.

At the top you have maybe 4 clubs who have a chance of actually winning the league (and you know who they are before the season kicks off). At the bottom there are 4 or 5 clubs trying not to finish in the bottom 3 (again, you know who they are before the season kicks off). And in the middle you have all the rest fighting over the scraps like a "top 10 finish" or a Europa League spot (the Europa League having nothing like the prestige of the old UEFA Cup or Cup Winners Cup). All a bit shit really. Never again will an "unfashionable" provincial team come from nowhere and win the league like Forest and Villa did, or like QPR and Ipswich came within a point or two of doing. It just will not and cannot happen the way things are now.

[Milk Tray Man]

Having said all that, the Scottish premier league is even more of a joke. Just hand the fucking trophy to Celtic in August and be done with it.

[MrTickle]

I had a season ticket from 1983-1999 and then I just decided I didn't want to go anymore. I was 27 then and I used to love my football, and never thought i'd see the day that I would stop going to games. Yes, as I got older my circumstances might of changed like getting married, having kids, but I would have still probably gone to games when I could. Why did I stop going? Well, it was becoming too expensive ( no longer value for money), All seater fucking stadiums (no atmosphere. They may as well erect murals around the ground, the fans are only dressage anyway), too many bloody foreigners, no-one gives a toss about the FA cup anymore, too much footy on the telly. It was better when everyone kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday. I could go on, but that's my little rant over with for now. RIP The Beautiful Game.

[David Johnson]

Couldn't agree more. As a kid from a working class family I was able to watch First Division football during the sixties without any thought given for the price.

I used to go with my mates every Saturday on the coach, one Saturday to watch Newcastle, the next to watch Sunderland and stand in the terraces behind the goal.

I even managed to get tickets for the World Cup in 1966, watching all the games in the North East group stage, including North Korea beating Italy! I saw a quarter final, semi and the final. And again by today's standards the tickets were ridiculously cheap.

As others have said in this thread, it is all money, money, money and the fans are treated like mugs. I get most enjoyment now from watching on the tele FA Cup games in which non-League sides play the big shots.

[Milk Tray Man]

David Johnson wrote:

> I get most enjoyment
> now from watching on the tele FA Cup games in which non-League
> sides play the big shots.


I know what you mean David. What annoyed me this year was how they chose to show Arsenal v Hull live (repeat of last season's final) when they could have shown Blyth Spartans v Birmingham, which turned out to be a cracking cup tie.

Pretty sure I know which game most neutrals would have preferred out of those two, and what a windfall it would have been for Blyth financially. But no, it had to be 2 premiership teams, presumably because they are more "marketable" to advertisers. Opportunity missed, money wins out again.