BBC football

[Kim]

It's a format that opens up the televisual opportunities of entirely new sports, such as flower arranging and origami.

Or, as I suggested upthread, Brexit.

[Greenbank]

It's called "Watching men[1] watching football" in our house.

The UK's blackout law is fun:-

UK football’s TV blackout rule prevents live football matches from being televised between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on Saturday afternoons. The blackout rule was introduced during the 1960s when Football League chairmen believed televised matches had a negative impact on attendances at matches being played at the same time.

The rule has caused controversy in recent years as live coverage of El Clasico, arguably the biggest match in world football, has been heavily disrupted.

Supporters of the rule believe removing the blackout would "threaten the sanctity" of the traditional Saturday 3pm kick-off. Recent findings from the European Court of Justice suggest the blackout period has little or no impact on attendances and, in fact, may restrict the European Commissions desire for cross-border access to audio-visual content.

El Clasico usually kicks off at 6pm in Spain, so 5pm in the UK. This means they can't show the first 15 minutes of it (even though it's not a UK football match) and so you get people in a studio talking about it and the second the clock flicks over to 5:15pm they switch to the live game footage, all very odd.

The impact on attendances usually concentrates on the teams that would be shown on TV. But Man U aren't going to worry about attendance if their games are televised as they generally sell out every game anyway. The lower league clubs are the ones most worried because they'll think people will stay at home to watch a big game on TV instead of going to watch their local team. Since you can't (legally) watch football on TV between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on a Saturday you may as well go to a real game. No-one can guarantee that attendances for lower league teams will be affected, but I'd like them to try it for a season to see.

The TV money is getting silly now, and it's helping to fuel the silly player wages and transfer fees, and that's down to people paying Sky/BT to watch football. Clubs should be able to cover the player wage bill through gate receipts, not many clubs in the country can do this; I'm hoping UEFA start to look into this in the future of their Financial Fair Play regulations.

1. The Sky panel is all male but BT Sport are including female pundits.

[DuncanM]

The blackout rule in the NFL is interesting - essentially, a local affiliate station can't show the local team if the game isn't a sellout. So if the Steelers don't sellout, you can't watch the game in Pittsburg, but you can watch that game in LA.
Obviously you can't do that with the UK being such a small place, and the effect it would have on lower league football is a good question. Personally, I think it might be worth the Premier League agreeing to give up a percentage of their TV revenue to the lower leagues to have the restriction lifted, but I guess as more of the revenue comes from overseas rights they are going to be less concerned about how many games they can show in the UK anyway.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's a format that opens up the televisual opportunities of entirely new sports, such as flower arranging and origami.

Or, as I suggested upthread, Brexit.

Which offers unrivalled opportunities for cake, er, rivalry.
"We've had two very tasty cakes from our video-listeners today. I'm tucking into a Victoria sponge from one of our overseas correspondents, Mr Fred Rage of the Cayman Islands, while Bob is trying a Schwarzwaldstorte sent by Rémi Naire from Bourton-on-the-Water. We've also had a curious letter from someone signing themselves Dick Amoron in Chipping Norton."

[Graeme]

It's a format that opens up the televisual opportunities of entirely new sports, such as flower arranging and origami.

Or, as I suggested upthread, Brexit.

[Bairn Again]

As a friend of ours remarked a few years ago "So, i ended up spending Saturday afternoon watching my husband watch a group of men watch a group of other men watching some other men play football". 

As well as all the reasons outlined above, I rather suspect that the popularity of Sky Sports Soccer Saturday (and the fact that BT Sport and BBC also have equivalents) are being helped along by the gambling industry in all its "bet in play" glory.   

[madcow]

It's a format that opens up the televisual opportunities of entirely new sports, such as flower arranging and origami.

Or, as I suggested upthread, Brexit.

Which offers unrivalled opportunities for cake, er, rivalry.
"We've had two very tasty cakes from our video-listeners today. I'm tucking into a Victoria sponge from one of our overseas correspondents, Mr Fred Rage of the Cayman Islands, while Bob is trying a Schwarzwaldstorte sent by Rémi Naire from Bourton-on-the-Water. We've also had a curious letter from someone signing themselves Dick Amoron in Chipping Norton."

Isn’t that called “Test Match Special” ?

[Wowbagger]

Oh the reminiscence! The evocative sound of the football results being read out in a sing song voice. People wax lyrical about the shipping forecast, but the pools results (after an epic Sunday lunch) were genuinely soporific.

Did you have your Sunday lunch at about 4.30pm on a Saturday? 

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's a format that opens up the televisual opportunities of entirely new sports, such as flower arranging and origami.

Or, as I suggested upthread, Brexit.

Which offers unrivalled opportunities for cake, er, rivalry.
"We've had two very tasty cakes from our video-listeners today. I'm tucking into a Victoria sponge from one of our overseas correspondents, Mr Fred Rage of the Cayman Islands, while Bob is trying a Schwarzwaldstorte sent by Rémi Naire from Bourton-on-the-Water. We've also had a curious letter from someone signing themselves Dick Amoron in Chipping Norton."

Isn’t that called “Test Match Special” ?

I was thinking "Match of the Day Special"!

[citoyen]

Pay-per-view actually offers the chance to watch live games on TV, something that was rarely available >20 years ago.

My son and his friends will often pay for a one off game or a boxing match and make an evening of it.  Get 10 friends around, have some beers, split the cost so it's a couple of quid each.  It's certainly more fun, and cheaper, than going to the actual event.

I remember doing that for Mike Tyson vs Frank Bruno rather more than 20 years ago. It seemed very exotic at the time, especially as it was on in the middle of the night. The friend whose house we watched it at was the only person I knew who had satellite TV. And that was in the days when there was a choice of two satellite broadcasters.