The 3pm U.K. Blackout

Because if Man United/Liverpool were on telly every saturday at 3pm, less people would go to watch the likes of Shewsbury Town live at 3pm on a saturday.

Would a die hard United/Liverpool fan REALLY attend some lower league match instead of streaming their own team/listening on the radio/whatever? I don’t buy it.
 
A "die hard" fan? Maybe not. The tens of thousands of fans who are perhaps not "die hard"? Sure.
I wouldn't call myself a diehard fan but I have no interest in watching lower league football. It does nothing for me. To be honest if I cant watch United I would rather do something else like watch other sport on TV, go training, study or play a video game. As for going out, the days where it was go to the match or the pub or be bored are long gone, there is just so much do do these days.
 
I wouldn't call myself a diehard fan but I have no interest in watching lower league football. It does nothing for me. To be honest if I cant watch United I would rather do something else like watch other sport on TV, go training, study or play a video game. As for going out, the days where it was go to the match or the pub or be bored are long gone, there is just so much do do these days.
My dad is the complete opposite. He loves live sport more than almost anything. If Chelsea are away he'll be at a lower league game most weeks.

People are different. I'm personally somewhere in the middle. If I'm visiting my Dad I'll happily miss a Chelsea away TV game to watch lower league game live. I don't do it on my own though.
 
My dad is the complete opposite. He loves live sport more than almost anything. If Chelsea are away he'll be at a lower league game most weeks.

People are different. I'm personally somewhere in the middle. If I'm visiting my Dad I'll happily miss a Chelsea away TV game to watch lower league game live. I don't do it on my own though.
I totally get that. Good for him if he enjoys it. I just found out that its on at 8:30pm on sky as the game of the day so I will spend today avoiding the score and watch it then. Have a good one everyone.
 
The average attendance at League two (the 4th tier in English football) varies between 15,000 and 1,500. It's far lower in the respective German and Spanish leagues (I even think some teams at that level are not full professional). They rely on gate receipts to survive.

If the lower league sides in other countries are coping fine then that's great for them but lower tier clubs in England would be absolutely destroyed by a hit to their attendances, that's not a price worth paying in my opinion.

Do people really go and watch their local club because there is 'nothing better to do'?

I don't see it. In the modern world there is always something you can do to entertain yourself without going to watch club you don't care about.

Anyone invested enough to watch their local side will still do it in my opinion. Besides if the football league cared enough they would have taken better care of Bury.
 
Some do, without question. I know many of them.

Go to any 2rd division game today and there will be fans of Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool & whoever else at a lot of them.

Fair enough, I can't imagine it personally, but each to their own.

I'm listening on radio and would have no interest in a lower league side.
 
Come one, come all England based United fans:

cry-me-a-river-justin-timberlake.gif
 
I am in Ireland so i was lucky. Bloody disgraceful though UK people could not watch it on sky or bt.
 
Although 2 million wouldn't surprise me, can they possibly know the number when they are illegal streams?

I assume its something like when they would televise something before the internet, they used be able to predict how many people tuned in.
 
Liverpool,Arsenal and Chelsea all playing at 3pm. What great value for money Sky & BT are on weekends like this
 
Is there any data that proves attendances of the lower league clubs would go down? Personally I think it’s bollocks. If someone wants to watch live football they will regardless of what games on tv. Streaming is so easy to access now.

A few years back I checked the data of lower league and non league attendances when the EPL started (with its new sky contract), and they actually went up not down. Note some of these teams had schedules which were played on Sundays same time as Sky games.

My personal opinion is there wouldn't be a measurable impact. TV coverage serves well in the following situations.

Unable to attend due to cost, disability, lack of seats at ground so still offers you a means to see your club play live.
Too lazy to attend, this would also mean you too lazy to attend lower league games.
Lack of anything else on at same time. (wouldn't be the case at 3pm kick offs)

Even if it were deemed to have an impact, the EPL standard KO could be just moved to Sunday 3PM instead.

This policy will be hurting Sky and BT, as most clubs who are not in the big 6, the majority of their games are not aired by Sky/BT, so people go looking for illegal streams. Once they find them, they realise they no longer need their sub.
 
Even if it were deemed to have an impact, the EPL standard KO could be just moved to Sunday 3PM instead.

I think keeping the Saturday 3pm blackout but airing all PL games is the most sensible solution.

Let Sky/BT air all the games, but they can't air any at 3pm on a Saturday.

Only downside is that match-going PL fans would understandably lament the loss of the Saturday 3pm KO, but they aren't exactly the norm now any more. Could even be a win/win, in that all games are aired, but if PL fans know they definitely won't have any 3pm KOs, they might be more inclined to try out a local lower/non-league team.
 
This blackout seems ridiculously outdated. It will be scrapped eventually, the question is how long that will take.

The instances in the past when Sky couldn't show the first 15 minutes of Clasico matches (I'm thinking of the one at the Bernabeu in the 2014/2015 season when Real Madrid won 3-1 and they couldn't show Neymar's early goal) were a complete joke.
 
A few years back I checked the data of lower league and non league attendances when the EPL started (with its new sky contract), and they actually went up not down. Note some of these teams had schedules which were played on Sundays same time as Sky games.

That's because they were advertising the feck out of football everywhere and the resulting increased interest in the game could not be funnelled into televised saturday 3pm games, so people got of their arses and went to a game.
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".

The most annoying part of the blackout is it limits the streams to less popular channels and weirder commentators compared to Sky/BT. Show the 3pm games on TV so we can pirate better quality streams and enhance our free stolen experience.
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".
In fairness it’s a nonsense that we should pay extortionate multiple subscriptions and still have to break the law to watch our club… that’s what your asking.

Completely outdated and unfair law. I’ve said it before, offer the 3pm’s out to bidding from broadcasters and the money generated could be passed down the football pyramid directly to the clubs this ‘Blackout’ is supposedly helping (which is massively questionable anyway.)

Those clubs would snap your hand off and vote to scrap the blackout overnight.
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".
I think the proposition becomes a lot different if fans can watch all their teams' games.

Some people would pay £60 a month to watch all their team's matches. However I think sky and BT could offer more affordable options. What's more pubs would be able to show more games so people would go there instead (provided there's no lockdown)
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".
Nothing beats a weekend away to watch Chelsea v Leeds at the Bridge. Ticket availability, not actually being from the U.K. and fan affiliation aside, of course
 
I think their attitude that they are doing this to protect attendances whilst charging the amount they do to watch any kind of footy on the tv is completely obnoxious imo. For example, we didn't have any kind of tv subscription service like sky growing up so the footy i could watch on the tv was quite scarce. But having something like the Champions league on itv every so often was like christmas for me and i would cherish every match i could watch.
Now obviously because watching lower leagues was cheaper we would go watch those types of games every so often so i guess they are right in that regard. But whilst i do support united what it did was give me complete and utter apathy towards competitions like the premier league that i had no way of watching. And now i feel sorry for kids these days who are in the same position as i was because now there isn't the champions league or even something like F1 these days, they've all buggered off behind a paywall.
 
Just watch a stream (like you all do anyway) and stop moaning or actually go to a game.

If they did televise it you'd all be moaning about the increased cost and still asking for "rivers".

Maybe you’re the kind of football fan only interested in watching one club play. Others might not be.

It is also rather tedious with this and many other issues where people think that because something is not inconvenient to them it cannot possibly be inconvenience to other people hence why we are left with these ridiculous Sunday trading laws in this country because of the innate and strangely prevalent belief that what time of day a complete stranger can buy a tin of beans from a supermarket is somehow somebody else’s business.

Just in the same way people are free to go to football matches I hope you realise that you are also free to turn the television off were these football matches to be available.

Presumably you find the televising of matches that you’re interested in watching but are unable to get to less of an inconvenience? Or maybe I’m being unfair in my insinuations of hypocrisy and you have never seen another football team play in many years unless you’ve seen it in front of your own eyes against the team that you support in which case I would take everything back

I guess that this is fundamentally with the division is between people who believe that live sport should be freely available should you wish to pay for it as opposed to people who pretend their sky dish on the side of the house it is simply for aesthetic reasons and in reality they are repulsed by this idea of anybody watching live sport or any kind of live entertainment that isn’t within a commutable distance of where they live.

The latter group will undoubtedly support the 3 pm blackout on the basis that it’s very unlikely anybody is going to come into their home and suggest the idea that then watching Monday night football makes them a bit of a hypocrite
 
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Maybe you’re the kind of football fan only interested in watching one club play. Others might not be.

It is also rather tedious with this and many other issues where people think that because something is not inconvenient to them it cannot possibly be inconvenience to other people hence why we are left with these ridiculous Sunday trading laws in this country because of the innate and strangely prevalent belief that what time of day a complete stranger can buy a tin of beans from a supermarket is somehow somebody else’s business.

Just in the same way people are free to go to football matches I hope you realise that you are also free to turn the television off were these football matches to be available.

Presumably you find the televising of matches that you’re interested in watching but are unable to get to less of an inconvenience? Or maybe I’m being unfair in my insinuations of hypocrisy and you have never seen another football team play in many years unless you’ve seen it in front of your own eyes against the team that you support in which case I would take everything back

I guess that this is fundamentally with the division is between people who believe that live sport should be freely available should you wish to pay for it as opposed to people who pretend their sky dish on the side of the house it is simply for aesthetic reasons and in reality they are repulsed by this idea of anybody watching live sport or any kind of live entertainment that isn’t within a commutable distance of where they live.

The latter group will undoubtedly support the 3 pm blackout on the basis that it’s very unlikely anybody is going to come into their home and suggest the idea that then watching Monday night football makes them a bit of a hypocrite
Maybe you should read the thread before presuming all these things. @duffer has explained his stance on this a million times, and it's little to do with what you're saying here.
 
Maybe you’re the kind of football fan only interested in watching one club play. Others might not be.

I watch whatever is on really depending on my mood.

Is it a bit annoying that I can't watch Chelsea on TV at 3pm on a Saturday after paying a feckload for sky and BT? Sure but I knew what I was signing up for.

The reasons the blackout are in place are worth that minor inconvenience. Same with Sunday working hours that you mention, they're sometimes annoying but serve a purpose.
 
All countries have this blackout for various sports etc.

It's not gonna go away anytime soon.

It's just stupid that more games are not available live on TV, because it was proven it can easily be done.

How was Man Utd v Palace not on TV for example.

There were 4 games that day on a non blackout day... none (or only 1) shown on TV..... How?
 
In fairness it’s a nonsense that we should pay extortionate multiple subscriptions and still have to break the law to watch our club… that’s what your asking.

Completely outdated and unfair law. I’ve said it before, offer the 3pm’s out to bidding from broadcasters and the money generated could be passed down the football pyramid directly to the clubs this ‘Blackout’ is supposedly helping (which is massively questionable anyway.)

Those clubs would snap your hand off and vote to scrap the blackout overnight.
I think the problem we have here is there’s too many cooks in the kitchen. English people will pay stupid money to watch sport and so BT, sky, Amazon know they can all have their piece. Abroad it’s all on one platform, Bein, supersport, NBC. If 3pms were sold here what would happen is fans will be absolutely rinsed even more than they are now.
You’d probably have Netflix or Microsoft or someone new turning up to get involved. BBC and ITV would probably want their piece too. So we’d all end up paying hundreds and hundreds of pounds to half a dozen broadcasters.

The only solution would be the clubs selling the games on a game by game basis but then what would happen is that big clubs will gain far more revenue and the gap gets bigger and bigger.

I get that it’s outdated but in all honesty I think changing it would open up a massive can of worms. The greed from the providers would increase tenfold.
 
How about non-PL games kicking off at 1pm on a Saturday & then PL games kicking off at 6pm on a Saturday? Will that still affect the attendance of Macclesfield vs Salford or Braintree vs Chelmsford?
 
I think the problem we have here is there’s too many cooks in the kitchen. English people will pay stupid money to watch sport and so BT, sky, Amazon know they can all have their piece. Abroad it’s all on one platform, Bein, supersport, NBC. If 3pms were sold here what would happen is fans will be absolutely rinsed even more than they are now.
You’d probably have Netflix or Microsoft or someone new turning up to get involved. BBC and ITV would probably want their piece too. So we’d all end up paying hundreds and hundreds of pounds to half a dozen broadcasters.

The only solution would be the clubs selling the games on a game by game basis but then what would happen is that big clubs will gain far more revenue and the gap gets bigger and bigger.

I get that it’s outdated but in all honesty I think changing it would open up a massive can of worms. The greed from the providers would increase tenfold.

In Germany or France or Spain, are all the live games shown on the one channel? Or is it split between different channels like the uk?