Tony, I was wondering if someone was going to pickup on this story; I had read of BT’s interest from the BBC website. The situation unfortunately is a little sword of Damacles for all sides, ourselves included as I think all teams are heavily reliant on Sky money. Those business which use it far more heavily are going to be hit harder; ironically the media darlings "the Sky 4" who are all massively in debt would be interesting to watch to see just how they deal with it. Chelski still have Abramovich in the background, Arsenal have a sound business not built on sand, Man Utd have the Glasers who last year used Man Utd to help themselves to £10m and despite winning lots and selling Ronaldho still posted losses, the RS are the most precarious being so heavily in debt and ran so poorly.

Away from those sides you could well see others go to the wall; Pompey’s last Sky installment of £7m was taken from them to pay their debts and they have had several problems paying their own squad. I don’t doubt lots of other teams aren’t that far behind them. If you factor in twitchy lenders into the equation you could well see loans called in as they were secured against future TV rights and that would bite BK squarely on the backside as well as many other clubs.

Longer term I think it would be healthy for the league and football in general, it’s become an abhorrence of greed which is magnified in the current economic climate. How many discussions have been had as to whether a player is worth £60k a week or £100k a week with the numbers just being accepted. Think for a moment what that sort of money actually looks like and does a footballer, genuinely, honestly deserve that much?

If the money is not there for these crazy amounts to pay the playing staff, maybe UEFA should be looking at implementing something along the lines of (dare I say it - wage ceiling) or a pay scale structure like any other large organisation. Players can still be free to earn their mega bucks via image rights, Gillette adverts, product endorsements, recommeding property in Dubai, buying loads of houses to rent out.

You know I’ve heard that in some fancy restaurants on Wall Street, waiters actually pay the restaurant to work there. Why? Because they make a blooding fortune in tips from the Wall Street traders. Using this analogy, is the Premiership not Wall Street and the teams the big men in red braces. The players are the waiters who should be paying the teams for the exposure to promote the own name and image rights across the world. Now there is a new business model for you.

Then if pay bands are not markedly different the decision for a player or his agent on who to play for is not so much financial but aspirational. Players would then choose teams based on history, facilities, team-mates, chances of winning etc. and get rid of the mercenary element in it just for the money, justified by "I’ve only got 10 years to do this". Well tough. Once a player has finished playing, go and do something else with the rest of your life.

In the good old days, players were also made to learn a trade and I had the pleasure many years ago of working with ex-Liverpool legend (now deceased) and plaster, called Jimmy Harrower. He was a local fella from Stirling and full of the most patter you will ever hear, and really quite a rubbish plasterer. I know he wouldn’t mind me saying that. RIP Jimmy.

end of rant

If this happens it will ruin English football. The Premier League is so strong because all the teams bargain for tv rights collectively as one then dish it out on merit e.g. placings in the league, appearences on television. The key being the difference is not that much between the top teams and the bottom ones. What is being proposed will lead teams to bargain individually and that will be the killer. Broadcasters will spend all their money on the top 4 teams. A bit like in Italy were attendences have been shocking because there is so much live football on the tv. Its all very well watching footie on your sofa (especially if you live abroad) but its not really what the game should be about. I’m afraid attendences will really suffer.

It’s not going to happen. No politician before an election is going to undermine Rupert Murdoch’s monopoly. It would be elective suicide. Sky can only make profit from its exhorbitant prices charged not only to its domestic customers but also to rival custmers such as Virgin, due to this monopoly position. Murdoch will defend this position with every asset he has available.

Andrew, I understand your concern, but I’ve said before:
Does music downloads stop people buying CD’s or going to concerts?
Do DVD’s and illegal videos stop people going the cinema?
Does the Internet stop you buying newspapers?
Do home delivery services stop you going to the shops?
Live pay to view football will not stop people going to the match because you cannot beat the real thing. Also, with less money needed for players, maybe going the game will be more affordable for many more people who currently can’t afford to go every week.

Mickey, I remember someone saying to me that this internet thingy will never happen!! You may be right for a few more years yet, but eventually it will happen.

"Free local telephone calls" It will never happen thought BT!!

Just get Virgin installed, get yourselves a chipped box. Bobs your uncle free Sky Sports, ESPN and Pay Per View.

Not discounting it may happen going forward Tony, I just mean the outcome of the current review by the OFT.

BT won’t be charging £15 for SS1. You will still need their standard package currently prices at £14.99 (after discounted period). Sky will probably drop subsciption prices to SS1 if necessary... but realistically as it’s only the price that they sell this to Virgin and BT:

"In its consultation, Ofcom proposed cutting the price at which Sky sells Sky Sports 1 channel to its rivals, such as Virgin Media and BT, to between £9.41 and £11.24, compared to £13.48 at present"

You’re looking at maximum price drop of £4.07 if Ofcom really go to town and both Virgin and BT pass the whole discount on.

Their price overall though wil still be more expensive than Sky’s direct as it’s Sky’s product and until someone can viably compete with Sky (ITV and Setanta have both tried unsuccessfully), it’s likely that this and any future "shake-ups" will be nothing more than token price drops for new customers.

Chad, this is just stage one of what customers want. Eventually as many new players join in (eg Internet Service Providers) competition will go up to the point where the Clubs get together and just do it themselves.

That’s my prediction. Don’t know how long it will take but I reckon it’s inevitable. The question is, how do Everton get a competitive advantage over other Clubs by planning ahead for the eventuality?

Have to agree again with you Tony, the technology to broadcast your own home games for football clubs has been around for years and you only need a decent broadband connection outwards.

I have a similar story to yourself on the crystal ball mockers; many years ago I worked for Heinz, they were working hand in hand with Tesco at the time through Tesco’s extranet and Tesco were developing their internet selling portal. They were mocked by many big players at the time and both were quite revolutionary for a supermarket, think now which large scale businesses don’t use them?

Markets with unfair and restricted vendors are scowled upon for good reason, no matter how big Sky are they can’t have things their own way for ever.

Whoever offers me the chance to watch every Everton game for 500 quid will get my custom. Simples.

Well said, Gavin.

Balls... Just written a fairly epic response but ballsed it up somehow.

Effectively I think you’re wrong because those dodgy internet streams are currently stealing BSkyB’s images. The BBC paid £171.6M for highlight rights MOTD 1 & 2 (note, this is not available on the iPlayer excluding live/scheduled broadcast time)... How much would Everton pay for these rights?

But you’re not suggesting this, but that individual or local rivals group together to produce their own live programmes. Let’s disregard the likely poor production values unless they were prepared to invest heavily (thus increasing the cost), how soon would it be before there was bickering about away teams not receiving enough airtime on these broadcasts and this would likely make the Sky 4/5 seem positively just.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jun/22/broadcasting.sport — (OK, you’d hardly expect him to be a staunch supporter of this kind of thing).

Basically producing programmes like these costs a huge amount... it’s not Phil Neville being interviewed about the snow or something. Clubs, having gone up against Murdoch and rejecting the money they are so reliant on, would then be selling this back to him The Beeb/ITV. I genuinely don’t see the need for a crystal ball.

With regard to Tesco, they saw another way to distribute their product which was and is very much in demand. Half the problem with the Dot Com bubble bursting was the number of sites which had no value or demand. Of course companies were wary after that, but these days a website is an intregal part of any companies brand.

If you want to look at shitty companies with only pound signs in front of their eyes then look no further than BT and its deliberate ponderous ways in letting anyone else use their infrastructure and holding the UK back at every step in getting decent internet speeds.

Digital TV allowed more channels, and a couple of teams went for it, most notably Chelsea and Man U, certainly MUTV is outsourced and most content is bought in, why, because there are huge overheads in producing your own content - hence most go for the Dave approach.

What you're talking about isn’t Tesco TV, it’s one of their farmers getting their own station and then trying to sell the media content to Tesco. Idealistically that farmer would be able to dictate the price of his goods to Tesco, but Tesco play on the fact the there are so many waiting in the wings for the chance the farmer’s being given and they just squeeze and squeeze.

Chad, I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. From the article you highlighted, there is a quote from Rupert Murdoch that goes like this:

"I just felt that to be able to give people choice was a wonderful opportunity; to come in and do that, and challenge the sort of BBC establishment," he said. "When you’re a catalyst for change, you make an enemy of the people that don’t want to change ... Talk to the BBC, and I’m sort of the devil incarnate, but that’s life."

This quote echoes exactly what I’m talking about: Choice! I don’t want to watch anyone else on the telly except Everton and most fans are the same. So where is the "choice" for us.

Maybe the way it will work out is that the Sky offering develops further so that even more choice is given to every fan — including being able to pay to watch their team live every week from anywhere in the world.

That’s what I’m saying will happen, how we get there is a matter for the Clubs to sort out collectively.

Tony, I’m sorry if I have misunderstood you, but the article I linked to and you’ve lifted a quote from directly argues against the "choice" view. Yes, Murdoch is protecting his interests in the way he says it, but essentially it would be detrimental to the product he is selling as it would make it even less of an even playing field in terms of revenue.

The quote you’ve taken he’s trying to make out he’s revolutionising things, but effectively he’s trying to get a strangle hold (which he’s managed). Look at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream versus Häagen-Dazs (Pilsbury) having sued them twice for "illegally" trying to limit distribution before alledgedly imposing the same rules on distibutors themselves. Think about your local pub, are there pumps that stand out more than others — is it a fair and level playing field.

Again I may have just gone off on another tangent in fairness but I can’t see Murdoch relinqueshing the rights without a massive fight.