So England ‘dead rubber’ qualifier away in the Ukraine this weekend is only available online at a cost of around £5. Digital sports specialist Perform bought these one off rights after the collapse of Setanta and are selling digital tickets as of today.
This appears to have caused massive consternation throughout the land, with many decrying the decision; pointing the finger of blame at the FA, the Football League (neither of which has a say in this btw) even the Government! Beyond all this bluster, I think there is a more interesting point developing with regards to the social nature of football and how an online stream would and could ‘deal’ with this.
Watching live football through online streams and ‘torrents’ isn’t new – it isn’t really that geeky either. The football forum I frequent is awash with links to streams from foreign broadcasters (who are allowed to show live Saturday matches) which you can access at a click – no technical knowledge necessary. Ok, the quality can sometimes be poor, and there is the fact that it is also illegal!
So there is an existing market out there who might be tempted by a legal stream, but it’s almost certain that they would prefer that they could view their football in the same ‘way’ they have for years. This isn’t to do with whether its online, on TV or at a ground – that’s just the media it is distributed on – it’s the principle that it’s a social activity. Fact is, watching football on your own is no fun. You just end up looking like a madman (or woman) ranting at a screen. Sky have tried their ‘fan view’ commentary that you can switch to – but I don’t know these people so care only very little for their opinions. The ‘keyboard warriors’ watching their online streams try and find an outlet for their voice on their fan forums where they ‘virtually’ know other posters. But these aren’t really immediate enough to fill that void. What can be done? The Ukraine v England match might be a one-off now – but have no doubt that if they sell enough ‘tickets’ (300,000 to ‘make money’ is the figure quoted) and with broadband penetration becoming the majority – this will become more and more common.
We at Numiko are working with clients who deal in entertainment events broadcast through the TV – often live and ‘as live’. Getting the audience involved has for the past 10 years been increasingly the aim – first via phone votes, now via online and other forms of ‘internet’ access. This year we have been building in even more intuitive, even more intelligent ‘real time’ services that allow fans immediate opinions and thoughts on what they are seeing ‘on screen’ be reflected. We are integrating new services for those viewing in their living rooms across the nation to actual join together en-masse, on line and share some collective, collaborative experience.
Sports events have always have the USP of that shared experience to bring them to life. That’s part of why people pay. In the hunt to sell their ‘product’ to a wider and more distributed audience – they shouldn’t forget this. Even the most dull match can still be a great occasion in the right crowd. Let’s see how Saturday goes – and what Perform put in place around ‘the product’ itself to make a football match into a real, sporting, social event.
FOOTNOTE: As a football fan – I just wanted to get a few things off my chest.
The match, and who gets to show it, is under the ownership of Kentaro/the Ukrainian FA. They sold it to Setanta – who bid the most for it. The BBC could have bid, so could ITV, Ch4 or Five. They didn’t. When Setanta went belly up, Kentaro put the match out for bids again – the winning bid came from Perform. If anyone is ‘to blame’ for this, have a look closer to home at our terrestrial broadcasters. BBC, ITV, 4 and Five constantly decry the fact that they are outbid by Sky et all. They all club together under the dubious banner of it being ‘in the national interest’ that these sporting occasions are reserved for terrestrial broadcast. Indeed, the Government is to release a report in a couple of weeks in which it may re-classify what are ‘the Crown Jewels’ of sport that must be on terrestrial.
If it is so important to have England games on terrestrial – they could have bid for this one. Surely they would have been able to find more money than Perform. That they did not shows that ‘national interest’ is nothing when it comes to ‘commercial reality’ – yes, even the BBC. The match has no real significance whether we win or lose – and the reality is they don’t want to shift Strictly or XFactor – these are ‘worth more’ than an England game. I hope the FA takes note of this attitude when the next rights auction comes around!