BBC to enter fray for live Premiership football

Extracted from Media Guardian - free registration is available to read the rest of the article - Media Guardian



Could be interesting to see if this comes off.

Hi

Apart from the occasional match such as Everton v Newcastle, in the main It will only be fixtures such as Charlton v Crystal Palace, Bolton v Aston Villa, Southampton v Fulham and Birmingham v Norwich at best that will at best be live on BBC1, ITV, Five or whoever terrestrially on a Saturday afternoon.

Don't think for a minute that you will see fixtures such as Man United v Arsenal, Liverpool v Chelsea, Newcastle v Man United, Arsenal v Liverpool, Liverpool v Man United or Chelsea v Man United live on BBC1 on a Saturday afternoon. Even UEFA cannot tell Sky that they cannot brodcast such fixtures as these considering that they pay top dollar. These top draw fixtures must remain on Sky Sports 1 on a Sunday afternoon or whenever accounting for European committments.

Apart from the last one of these 'big' fixtures was on a Tuesday.

I've said before that I'm not impressed with the football coverage on BBC1 this year - and think the return of Match of the Day has done more damage to BBC Sport as a whole than it's done good.

It won't be A-list matches in any package the BBC picks up.

The 3 FA Cup matches a round (plus replay!) are ridiculous. Obviously it's alot about the look of the draw, but there hasn't been more than one must-watch match a round this year so far. To be fair though they get good ratings - but the BBC isn't supposed to be about ratings.

I personally think the BBC would offer a better service putting the replay on BBC3 and one match per round (the Saturday lunchtime game) on BBCi - so Football Focus does air the week of the FA Cup.

Also, they may now also have England Friendlies, but the new deals mean that if England matches are on Sky, there are no terrestrial highlights - something I never recall happening before.

There is also the loss of the Wales games - and although disapointed, to be fair Sky won them fairly but again there are no highlights of games in English, though a late deal was struck with S4C for delayed coverage.


Anyhow, back on topic. By the time these rights come up the current deals will mainly have come to an end. I wouldn't like to see the BBC pick up both MOTD and the live games (though if I recall it could be as few as 8 games a season!) - and also like to see the overall amount of football cut in favour of better coverage of minority sports and domestic rugby.

IMO BBC Sport - and football in particular - has been at it's best in the three years ITV had the Premiership rights.

I disagree. Match of the Day has improved this season after a rocky start. Last night's coverage of the Holland game was fantastic.

You can't blame the BBC for Sky not bothering with FA Cup and England friendly rights.

I really don't think the BBC gaining Premiership rights in 2 or 3 years time for what in the main are hardly fixtures that will set the heather on fire will be enough to derail Sky Sports off the track.

You certainly won't see a huge drop in Sky Sports subscriptions to see the likes of Norwich v Soutampton and West Brom v Charlton while sky sports still have the rights to the monster fixtures and 95% of the attractive 2nd cut of Premiership fixtures.