Two more Everton games on subscription TV

Not only do subscribers have to pay extra to have the sports, but are getting hit again to watch what they CAN'T go to watch live! Then there's the Boxing, when there's a Big Fight on, hit them for £30/20 a go.

I recall a statement no so long ago that every match would be made available during the lockdown, and fair enough they have delivered on that one, but to start charging extra?

The other thing that grinds my gears (sorry Peter Griffin) is not only are people paying twice, but they are also milking the revenue from advertising, of which they are crammed in to every available bit of non-match coverage.

I'm so glad that I have IPTV so although I get the ads, I also have the mute button for them, but I don't have to pay them at Sky or BT.

Here in Australia the AFL Grand Final is shown only on free-to-air TV. Every other game of the season is shown live, in HD, on FOXTEL.

On Grand Final day, the culmination of the season... a public holiday, no less, we can only watch the game on free-to-air TV that make their money by showing adverts during the game. 19 goals this year (reasonably low) and after every one it cuts to an ad.

Add to that the fact that they only broadcast in HD on certain platforms – it's a pretty underwhelming experience.

I don't like the idea of having to pay extra for the PPV games but, if I have already forked out for Sky Sports and BT Subscriptions, them taking up these games to show live means I don't have to fork out extra for Pay-Per-View.

In this instance, I see it as 'saving' me £30. Not sure that makes me greedy, but so be it. With you on the ads, though. At least we can record most things and speed through them. But they will soon use technology to stop that, a la YouTube, I suspect.

Sky and BT are not making any profit from the "extra" televised games, instead passing on the revenues directly to the clubs concerned to compensate for loss of match day income. Puts things in a slightly different light I think. Don't know whether it's 100% factually correct though.

I stopped subscribing to BT and Sky Sports about a year ago now... they were two bills that I could do without. But I am fascinated by streaming live footy but I haven't got a clue which gear to buy, and then set up.

I now have a MAG Box which I find is the best of the lot, and is not as programmable as Firestick or Android, but you subscribe to an IPTV source, insert that particular URL in and all the hard work is already done. On my MAG Box I have two Portals and subscribe to 2 different providers so between the 2 I have virtually everything, and access to TV from all round the World.

The only limitation is that you must have a fairly decent steady Broadband Signal and not with BT or Sky as they may block a lot of the content. Again I have tried several, but found for my area, EE has proved to be the best for me. If you need any more info, YouTube pretty much covers all aspects and that is how I learned all about what and why and wherefore. Hope that helps.

I read post 6, DK... and it was like double Dutch to me. Maybe I can get VVD to translate given he's got fuck all else to do for the foreseeable.

Rob, get in touch with me through Peter, Keith, Andy, Paul T or Mike G. I may have a solution for you, don't throw the MAG Box away, it's not at fault. 👍

"Yes, with Optus Sports. All 380 Premier League games, Champions League, Europa League etc. A$15 per month or A$139 for the season (they had a special offer last month of A$99). There's a growing number of people signing up from the UK now too and watching via VPN. My favourite alternatives are S-Sport from Turkey which is less £2 a month for all games and better still Idman TV from Azerbaijan which is absolutely free. None of the above are pirate. They're all official rights holders of the Premier League."

Ray #4 I'm sure Sky and BT benefit from selling advertising slots.

The last time I checked on the legality aspect, and this has been challenged twice, as far as I know, through the US Government. There have been petitions signed by literally thousands advocating that the Internet and its content is basically a public domain, which has never been refuted by those in power. So why should certain companies have the monopoly?

The other side of the coin as regards watching 'Live Football' – it is circumvented by not actually being 'live' – it is usually roughly a 2-minute delay, so not infringing live broadcast rights.

The only very small drawback, if you can call it that, is if you are on the Live Forum it can be a spoiler when someone types 'GOAL' and the stream hasn't kicked off yet, or the action hasn't happened! 🤦‍♂️

I suppose if I were under tier 3 conditions then I would be pissed off because they can't now just go to the pub to watch it.

Of course, it costs money to produce good quality content for broadcast so the idea that everything on the internet should be free is laughable. The stuff that is ‘free' comes with data harvesting and invasive advertising.

I think Now TV is owned by Sky and those who are legally broadcasting the Sky or BT images / programmes on the internet will be paying them something for the privilege.

I'd always wondered why the TV was a couple of minutes behind my radios (I have vintage 70+ year old valve sets as well as modern DAB ones).

I have the radio sound on and the TV pictures so know if a free kick or corner will come to anything. I've often thought of calling Carlo warning him if we're about to concede but I don't think it quite works that way!

I hate watching/listening to games and find it much less stressful, and more enjoyable, actually being there. My targets are constantly being revised. First, it was to hang on long enough to see us play at Bramley-Moore Dock, then that was downgraded to at least seeing building work start. Now it's just to see another game at Goodison!

I don't even bother reading the match report... just the bipolar views of all the comments...

Now that's entertainment!

A lad I know has IPTV. He pays €10, or around NZ$19 a month. I've watched games at his place and it's a good setup. He has a smart TV so it literally works through an app on the television itself – no MAG box required – and is quite good. If he doesn't like the commentary in a given game, he'll find a different channel in his package showing the game and watch that which is a neat feature.

@ Derek Knox – apparently a smart DNS may be all you need to obfuscate your ISP and prevent them from blocking you. Some legit offer ones free trials as well, I used one once to check out American Netflix from here in New Zealand a while ago.

Your router, unless it's essentially junk, should also support a VPN from firmware. By connecting to the VPN through the router, you negate the issue of the MAG box having no VPN functionality.

The commentary was by two Chester supporters, so was slightly slanted in their favour, but they were also complimentary and gracious towards their opponents.

There were no replays of any of the action, and no VAR. There were two key, controversial moments which decided the game, they were determined once by the referee, the other by a linesman. And there was no hysteria around those decisions.

It was all quite refreshing.

My apologies for the editors for that, I know you like to keep a tidy site.