Why clubs happily put their shirts on a small screen appearance
WHEN you are a big soccer club the incentives are there to help you offset some of the high maintenance to run them.
A prime example this week is the decision by taxpayer-owned Northern Rock to continue as the sponsors of Newcastle United for another four seasons. Newcastle will net 10m if they return to the Premier League and as they head the Championship right now they seem to be on course.
West Brom, who they played on Monday night in a very good match I watched on Sky Sports, have been attracting shirt sponsors on a game by game basis for each game for some reason this season – maybe they couldn't land one for the whole term having been relegated.
For the last home game on television they had Victor Chandler, the Gibraltar-based on-line bookmaker and have won many a plaudit for Monday's game when they had emblazoned on the front of their shirts the website set-up for donations to the Haiti Appeal to deal with the aftermath of the tragic earthquakes.
You really have to be in the Premier League, and especially among the top six, to pull in the millions-per-season or you are looking around 70-130,000 per-season in the Championship.
What does it for the Premier League big guns is the amount of television and media coverage they get allied to the amount of replica shirts that are sold here and abroad – America, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Malaysia being big markets for the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspurs.
The BBC televised the Manchester City v Manchester United Carling Cup semi-final first leg on Tuesday evening at peak viewing time and the cost of the digital advertising around the pitch will have been astronomical because the game was on terrestrial television and that always bumps up the price over what clubs can command when it is on a satellite channel.
Had the game also been on ITV then the advertising rates for their interludes would also have been top whack.
The BBC will have had to pay good money for their contract but with Man U involved BBC Television Enterprises will have really cashed in on the Old Trafford sides' worldwide appeal to haul a good part of the contract back on this one.
Is it any wonder that the BBC and ITV are still negotiating who is covering which England match in the opening group of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
More unknown inside information for you to digest here and now is the coverage of the selected match for the BBC 'Football League Show, shown on Saturday nights. They show highlights from all three divisions and lead off with their choice of the match of the day – normally from the Championship but last Saturday League 1's East Anglian derby between Colchester Utd entertained Norwich City.
The BBC, to recoup some of their outlay for the outside broadcast, allow the game to be broadcast live across Europe and America. ESPN, Setanta US or Fox TV usually bid for these games so you could more than likely pick it up in Ireland if over there or in one of the UK public houses with a dish that can pull in some 1,000 channels.
I have said many times that I don't think people realise just what big business football is and for that matter any professional sport, especially in these days of beaming to satellites and showing world wide.
Those not interested in sport who knock the coverage should sit back and look at the wider picture and what sport as a whole does for the economy world wide. Why else would there be such a fuss and commotion over a country landing the Olympic Games, Common-wealth Games, World Cup soccer and rugby and all the other major tournaments from golf to tennis and from horse racing to motor racing.
LAST Saturday I was rubbing shoulders with former Watford and England manager Graham Taylor who was at Doncaster's Keepmoat Stadium in his role as acting chairman of the Championship club.
Graham, a son of Scunthorpe, has been brought back to nurse the club back to health while the finances are sorted out at Vicarage Road with the previous owner. Apparently they went through the mill a couple of months before Christmas.
Everyone was wanting their photograph taking with him, so I stepped back for once as he just put his arms around them and posed without a moan or a groan.
He was very gracious in defeat and said the best team had won and that Doncaster on their day are one of the best footballing sides in the country.
Finally, how nice it was after almost five weeks to see some live sport, enjoy some fresh air and fingers crossed we all get back to normal this weekend.
I for one want to see three pages of sport back in Echo Sport which was really revving everyone up when along came Jack Frost and then the snow to cut all the live action out.
If you are in action this weekend then let us all know about how you went on and get your reports in to Echo Sport by Tuesday lunchtime.
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Weather for Halifax
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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