Retro Yakking

Last Saturday’s Ukraine-England match may have been a landmark in sports coverage due to its internet-only broadcast (at least in Britain), but those worried we may soon see all international games taken from our screens need not fret.

It seems the central issue here is cash. Yes, we have all been hit hard by the recession, and some have it a lot harder than others. Think about the poor England players, for example, that struggled to perform in a game not shown live on any television station in the United Kingdom.

Kentaro — the broadcaster responsible for distributing coverage of the match — may have proclaimed the webcast a massive success with over half a million viewers in Britain alone, but the England players that suffered embarrassing defeat as a result beg to differ.

After conducting much research into top-level matches over the last three years, we have found a direct link between the number of people watching on television and the quality of matches. Matches broadcast in the Sunday afternoon slot on Sky Sports 1 bring, on average, fifteen goals per game, whereas your typical Saturday fixture not shown on television at all averages 0.3 goals per game. That’s a pretty big gap. — Alf Hart, Footballchester University

What Mr. Hart fails to note is that in general Sky likes to pick the best teams for their broadcast games, so it’s more likely that they will be goalfests than the gritty, dogged relegation tussles the station so conveniently ignores. Additionally, professors at Footballchester University are well known for making its students carry out all the research for which the eggheads take all the credit, fame and cash along with it.

But for all his leeching and forgetting to carry the one, Hart has a point - there is strong evidence to suggest the England players failed to care about the game, often glancing at their watches or asking the referee how long was left to play so they could go and have tea at some fancy English-themed restaurant in Dnipropetrovsk.

This argument, though, conveniently ignores the fact the match was effectively a dead rubber and England had to play the majority of the match with ten men in front of thousands of flame-wielding Ukrainians baying for British blood.

Thankfully, England players need worry no more, at least for a long while. Although some estimates suggest technology will advance to such a point that people will be able to watch television-quality live streaming on their computer within a couple of years, the media is making a huge deal over what is, essentially, nothing.

The only reason this game was not shown on television is because Setanta, the broadcaster that originally purchased rights to screen it live, collapsed.

It is accepted that this match held less importance than many, but England’s next five or so fixtures all have importance in that they are vital warmup matches for the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa, so you can bet your life that ESPN or Sky will snap them up. Then there’s the World Cup itself, shared between ITV and the BBC, assured a terrestrial airing.

After that, well, we’ll address that problem when we come to it, but there’s no doubt broadcasters still care about international fixtures, despite previous messages to the contrary. As has been mentioned, it’s all down to the money, which Rupert Murdoch has plenty of.

Oh yeah, and I am fully aware of the irony that I’m once again criticising the media for hyping this up, when I am as guilty as any of doing so. But hey, I’m a blogger, it’s my prerogative.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS