Drastic Way to Increase Attendances

[Fish111]

Copy the NFL system. If you do not sell out your tickets for games 72 hours before the game then a TV blackout exists up to 75 miles around the stadium for the duration of the game so no-one can watch you play live!!

Draconian or what? But it's happening to some large NFL teams this season.

[Slim]

Always been in effect with sports in this country, games aren't shown live unless they are sold out. I believe Australian Rules and cricket both have that rule.

[Dameerto]

Always been in effect with sports in this country, games aren't shown live unless they are sold out. I believe Australian Rules and cricket both have that rule.

I've NEVER heard that before! Either I live in a cave, or they just don't mention it over here. Does it have an effect on attendances? And on TV revenue come to think of it. (How do the TV companies feel about it?)

[ronk]

Don't know if it would do that. The spread out nature of American Television made the blackout rules easy to implement. They also have the natural converse. Away games should always been shown live on TV in the locality. There are less regional broadcasters in England, and more crossover. In America there are big, big areas where only one team has more than expat support. Your local team could be 200 miles away, and you'd have crowds going to bars to watch games together. Blackout areas would want to be much smaller in England. How would people feel about the City game being blacked out because Wigan, Blackburn, Everton, Bolton or Stoke away couldn't sell out. Despite having Manchester to ourselves, blackouts at away matches could still affect about half the away fixtures for a 75 mile limit.

If you think that Sunday Ticket has been running since 1994, the current Sky TV deal means that football will be at least 20 years behind before anything happens. some details of just how neglected we are

The other thing is that the no promotion/relegation system in American Football means that there's a huge permanent demand for a small number of teams. Quite simply, if fans in Phoenix or Kansas City don't keep bringing the crowd, another city will be happy to have the team move over. So much so that they'd build them an 80k stadium for free. When you can do that, you can make all sorts of rules.

[Dipstick]

Copy the NFL system. If you do not sell out your tickets for games 72 hours before the game then a TV blackout exists up to 75 miles around the stadium for the duration of the game so no-one can watch you play live!!

Draconian or what? But it's happening to some large NFL teams this season.

Of course one of those clubs used to have a season ticket waiting list of 100,000 - but now have 24,000 empty seats.
Oh - and they are owned by somebody called Malcolm Glazer.

[urlnp=http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/sep/14/glazers-tampa-bay-manchester-united]http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/sep/14/glazers-tampa-bay-manchester-united[/urlnp]


Gotta just love the guy.

[Beeks]

Haha like sky would allow that to happen

they practically fund the premiership

[ronk]

Haha like sky would allow that to happen

they practically fund the premiership

Sky have to renegotiate sometime. The problem as I see it is that the TV packages are designed to prevent someone doing exactly what DirecTV did.

There's no way to bid on innovative TV packages. We've now been forced into a situation where multiple TV companies each charge huge money for a small number of matches shown.

Despite matches been broadcast around the world there's a situation where no more than 6 matches can be shown on a weekend over 7 slots. This weekend for example, it's 4 out of 10 matches shown with no Monday night game, 3 matches on Sky Sports and 1 on ESPN. Considering what's actually happening, the packages themselves are absolutely shit. But just like the thread about German fans boycotting a match over ticket prices, we know that it's the same thing. People are too blasé about getting ripped off. They moan about it but don't do anything about it to change things.

[ashton287]

Haha like sky would allow that to happen

they practically fund the premiership

Sky have to renegotiate sometime. The problem as I see it is that the TV packages are designed to prevent someone doing exactly what DirecTV did.

There's no way to bid on innovative TV packages. We've now been forced into a situation where multiple TV companies each charge huge money for a small number of matches shown.

Despite matches been broadcast around the world there's a situation where no more than 6 matches can be shown on a weekend over 7 slots. This weekend for example, it's 4 out of 10 matches shown with no Monday night game, 3 matches on Sky Sports and 1 on ESPN. Considering what's actually happening, the packages themselves are absolutely shit. But just like the thread about German fans boycotting a match over ticket prices, we know that it's the same thing. People are too blasé about getting ripped off. They moan about it but don't do anything about it to change things.

Fight the power brother ronk.

[Im_Spartacus]

and we would all watch rivers anyway which are non-geographical.

cannot be done