Most liked posts in thread: Pay Per View Premier League Games

I don't understand why anyone thinks that's expensive. The cheapest Premier League season ticket is £320 a season so that's almost £17 a ticket. The cheapest of the most expensive season tickets is £513 so £27

 

First of all PL games haven't generally been available on a game by game basis. The games that were shown at the end of last season and then the start of this season only really helped the broadcasters, they weren't paying for these matches (infact due to rebates due to COVID they were adding value to their customers, getting more ad revenue, driving subscriptions and having the clubs pay for the privilege). The broadcasters weren't willing to pay more for the extra matches and were not willing to let the clubs sell their own rights for clubs not covered by TV contract.

And perhaps spend 5 mins googling

Arsenal - Required a partial payment to secure access to the ballot when reduced capacity starts. This is I believe about 10 games worth of matches and if will be refunded pro-rata if you don't get into enough matches to recover that. You can choose not to be in the ballot and take a holiday paying up either the pro-rata amount if full capacity happens this season or you space is kept for next season if it doesn't

Aston Villa - Didn't put season tickets on sale. Everyone is on a 'holiday' period

Brighton - They don't do season tickets, they have rolling 12-month memberships which go from Feb to Feb so they were already paid up before COVID happened. They have had this years membership converted in cash balances which any match they get to attend is deducted from and anything left over will go against next season membership

Burnley - Are already refunding anyone who requests it. or they can wait and get a refund based on how many matches they weren't able to goto at the end of the season

Chelsea - Didn't sell any season tickets

Palace - Sold season tickets but at a discount by the number of games they had at home before the proposed partial reopening. They are then giving credit for games that can't be attended which can be applied to next season. They have also put in place a system where if you don't want to go you can pay for the season ticket but sell it on a match by match basis through the club to get your money back. If you didn't want to renew due to being high-risk they charged £200 to hold the season ticket which would be deducted off next seasons price

Everton - Are refunding ona pro-rata basis

Fulham - Didn't put season tickets on sale

Leicester - Charged a reduced initial payment with ticket prices taken from that for each game they get to go to if the stadium is partially opened. Any leftover of that initial payment will go towards next seasons ticket

Liverpool - Suspended season ticket sales and refunded. Plan to sell them game by game until full stadiums.

Man City - No season tickets. Last seasons season ticket holders will go into a ballot for partial reopening and charged if they are successful

Man Utd - As already mentioned

Newcastle - Didn't sell season tickets

Sheffield United - Didn't sell season tickets

Southampton - Charged full price put allowed it to be paid in instalments and gave them a £35 voucher to be used in the club shop. Are refunding on a pro-rata basis

Spurs - Paid 20% of the season ticket cost. This may be partially refunded in the event of partial stadiums. You an also pay the 20% and skip the ballot and any seats this season if we get full stadiums but reserve your season ticket for next season

West Ham - See @Interested Bystander

Wolves - No season tickets on sale


The only two clubs I can't find any info on are Leeds and West Brom. So there are many who haven't charged, some who have partially charged, others who are refunding (or giving credit against next season) on a game by game basis. Most certainly have something in place

 

What if you've already bought a season ticket and now have to pay again?

 

People using illegal streams to watch these games will go up ten fold. By charging they'll have pushed many people into doing it as they'll be even easier to find now.

 

You can get a very decent, reliable VPN for about £2/month. Not really too complicated at all, especially if you're tech savvy enough to find an illegal stream.

 

That's a complete myth. When Netflix was just £5 a month, Netflix originals would still dominate the piracy charts every month and by a long way. Most people who pirate something will never pay for content. If there is a legal way to watch something and they pirate no matter how much they justify it due to price most wouldn't pay even if it was just 10p. Football piracy exists for two reasons, the lack of legal ways to watch some matches and then because they are people who will never pay no matter the price.

And a lot of people are going 'they should do their own streaming service for £10' but the problem is they would lose money. The low quality iFollow level product wouldn’t go, MUTV does better coverage of the u18's that iFollow provides but doing a Sky/BT level production is expensive. An hour of live sport at that quality costs around the same price as an average hour of scripted drama because of the number of cameras required, the number of staff to produce it live and to then send it back to hq live and then broadcast it out.

Also with the current TV tv broadcasts bring in £508mill each month domestically alone at £10 you woild need over 50mill subscribers. There are only 27mill households in the U.K. so that’s impossible. Paid TV and SVOD have both found that 15mill households is where you start to hit saturation point so to cover the income from the current deals that’s £33 a month but footballs market cap is likely to be smaller than that so it would need to be even higher.

And sure you could argue that they don’t need as much money but that’s catch 22, less money means less star players. That makes it a weaker product and people are less likely to buy it, and international deals will also fall. That means less money not just for the PL teams but it would see the EFL payments have to be cut which would impact clubs like yours as well

 

But people don't appear to mind putting money into the pockets of organised criminals who are responsible for most dodgy streams. And others condone it if not encourage it. It's a strange world!

 

Do I take it you condone piracy and copyright theft?

Just to be clear, piracy of copyrighted material is a criminal act in the UK as are several other activities which encourage or promote piracy. Only recently, a couple of criminals who were selling Kodi boxes with software to access illegal streams were arrested by the police, convicted in court of a criminal act and imprisoned. It's the watching of illegal streams which is currently a civil and not criminal offence.

What's your view on some of the scroats at VP who were sharing a single season ticket allowing them to gain access to watch the game at VP together without paying for it?

 

It's not so much that I condone it, but more that it’s no where near as clear as copyright holders make out. The movie industry for example claim it losses them $30bn a year but it makes the assumption that an act of piracy is automatically a lost sale which isn’t the case. If the person pirating wouldn’t have bought it then it’s a zero loss crime. And plenty of studies on music piracy actually showed that that those who pirated a lot spent more on music than those who didn’t and that year on year spending increased at a greater rate.

Financially it’s just not the big loser that it’s made out to be because again most of these people would not buy the product and those who can sample it often buy it (obviously love sports streaming doesn’t really get this boost mind you) and at-least in Music, movies and TV a it’s actually seen a much better product being put out. In Music for example we were getting to the point where labels were looking to churn out albums as quickly as possible to a point you would get maybe 2 or 3 tracks that were good and would be the singles and the rest of the album was low quality filler. With piracy they can afford that less, an album full of filler won’t translate piracy into sales as it’s not worth the money.

As I said the only issue is when those who would buy it turn to piracy. That has increased, the likes of a Netflix have much of the blame to take there. They were so eager to get a foothold that they priced themselves way too low and it’s caused people to devalue content and even if they would have bought it or an equivalent product previously for much more they can think it’s too much and pirate it.

For example if I watch a pirated stream of West Ham vs Fulham tomorrow they aren’t losing anything. I wouldn’t have attended the match and certainly wouldn’t pay for it as I don’t have enough interest in it for that. however if
@Interested Bystander pirates it then there is a bigger issue as he may have attended the match and as such is paying less for PPV so there is little reason he wouldn’t buy the PPV

 

Cutting through all that, you do therefore condone piracy especially if you're a party to it. I admire your attempt to place the blame on piracy onto Netfix's shoulders because of their pricing strategy rather than place the blame on organised criminals and those who encourage that behaviour by buying into dodgy sites who stream the copyright material illegally.

And by the same argument, you must therefore condone the acts of the scroats at VP who don't pay to watch the game because by your description, the club isn't necessarily losing anything. At least we now understand your position.

ps At least you've moved on from saying that piracy of copyright is simply a civil offence and therefore not as serious as a fully blown criminal offence.