the new TV deal for football

It's no longer a beautiful day.

yes Sky deserve it, only they can give it the coverage it deserves, which they do to excessive levels but that's by the by - the quality is actually very good.

so what now for Des? back to the Beeb tail between his legs, or will be become a judge on Pop Idol?

Sky' coverage is good, but should we be worried that the EC will get upset and declare the whole thing illegal?

A quote from Des' agent says that he went to ITV for The Champions' League, anyway. Hmmmm...

EU want to see the bids to check that it was competitive tendering; problem here for the Prem - the Eu were really concerned at monopoly concentration of live TV rights with one broadcaster and were using football as a route in here; they were thus attacking the symptom, not da cause. Yesterday, Competition Directorate Spokesman said 'the main thing is, we want to make sure that the live games don't end up with one broadcaster.' Oops.

And it was widely rumoured that a terrestrial channel would get one of the packages. As I understand it, the EU Commission is mainly concerned about collective TV rights, whereas football (this thing called football) argues that it is unique and can't be regulated like other industries.

So how on earth could one broadcaster win all the bids?

Shirley there most have been something to prevent that or what was the point?

God, imagine if Abramovich bought Sky... *shudder*

Hmm. The real problem is that Sky have resources the others don't; they can outbid all (it would seem). The choice then is two fold:

1) Cap the rpice at a lower level to enable other participants - but football would argue that it's own business was being restricted anti-competitively in this manner.

2) Make a certain proportion of the _live_ games available to free-to-air broadcasters - dodgy issue this, since there's already rumblings that the UK top 10 sports events on the proetcted list is itself anticompetitive.

Main problem beneath this - football is unlike other businesses and shouldn't be regulated like standard businesses; it can be regulated through these means, but things go tits if they are. Sport needs erxemption from the EU Treaties and placed in a new legal framework more suited to its peculiarities. But no political will to do this - the clubs don't want extra regulation that might actually _work_ and depending on the issue at hand are thrusting businesses / important community institutiuons.

So we all muddle along through until is goes tits through a thousand concessions. What a happy thought to begin the season with.

i can't understand why the BBC has not launched its own digital sports channel yet.

They don't even have enough sport to fill Grandstand some weeks.

The thought that the days are numbered of sitting through Andy Townsend and Robbie Earle stating the obvious while 'Coisty' plays the pantomime dame, enduring week after week of the same four teams analysed incessantly while their opponents barely get a namecheck, just to see five minutes of Spurs/City/Brum/Villa/all others at five to midnight, fills me with utter, incandescent glee.

yeh....in their place will be Ian Wright....great....

You do get the feeling that the Beeb knows when its pundits should shut up. At ITV you sometimes get/got Big Ron and co talking ad nauseum about forthcoming Champs' League games even when they still had games to show (and analyse) from that day. Enough moaning about ITV. When I asked if Sky deserve their success I was wondering about the fact that Sky have made a success of live prem football and that, arguably, they took it forward when nobody else would put their money up front into football.

Darren and Steve are both on the cash.

What a sentence.

Darren is right to disdain ITV's coverage. Steve is right to note that BBC has been dragging itself rapidly downhill since losing the rights. Wright, Dixon, even Redknapp (J) are all somewhere between mediocre and abominable, or beyond.

interesting to see laurro teamed with "pally" pallister on footy focus yesterday. also i wonder if we're looking at MOTD with somewhat rose-tinted glasses. yes, no adverts = more footy/analysis, and laurro/hansen >>> than any itv pundits but i reckon they'll still be concentrating on the "big five" as much as ITV have...

Mark Lawrenson's hair!

Also, Robbie Earle will forever be a god amongst men. Swoon.

Darren - But Sky weren't the only ones - ITV had a bid in in 1992 that was bigger, but Sky came back with a bigger bid after Alan Sugar rang them up and told them how big ITV's bid was. It made the channel, and since then, they've paid big because they need the rights as it's their main money-making content; as a result, they blow everyone else out of the water because they have to have those rights.