- English football on television
English
football (soccer) has been screened ontelevision since 1937, and since the establishment of thePremier League in 1992, it has become a very lucrative industry. As of the 2007-08 season, television rights for the 20-teamPremier League are valued at close to £1bn each season. Based on July 2007exchange rate s, this is only marginally less than whatAmerican football 's 32-team NFL receives from its TV contracts.History
Early years
The
BBC started its television service in 1936, although it was nearly a year before the very first televised match of football was screened – a specially-arrangedfriendly match between Arsenal and Arsenal Reserves at Highbury onSeptember 16 ,1937 . [cite weburl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/2260280.stm
title=Happened on this day - 16 September
work=BBC Sport
accessdate=August 22
accessyear=2006 ] This was followed by the first international match, between England and Scotland onApril 9 1938 , and the first televisedFA Cup final followed soon after, onApril 30 the same year, between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End. [cite web | url=http://www.teletronic.co.uk/tvera.htm | title=The History of the BBC: The First Television Era | accessdate=August 22 | year=2006]However, coverage of football television did not expand and for the next two decades the only matches screened were
FA Cup final s and the odd England "v." Scotland match. The first FA Cup tie other than the final to be shown was a fifth round match between Charlton Athletic and Blackburn Rovers onFebruary 8 1947 , but matches were sparing and only games in London could be broadcast, for technical reasons.cite web | url=http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/factual/goalmouths/part1.htm | title=Goalmouths - TV's Voices of Football | work=Off The Telly ]The dawn of regular coverage
The advent of
floodlighting led to the creation of the European Cup, designed as a midweek cup competition for the champions of European nations, in 1955. The newly formed British television stationITV saw televised football as an ideal way of gaining a share of the audience from their only rival broadcaster, the BBC. The BBC meanwhile, started showing brief highlights of matches (with a maximum of five minutes) on its Saturday-night "Sports Special " programme from 10 September 1955, until its cancellation in 1963. The first games featured were both from Division One - Luton Town v Newcastle United and Charlton Athletic v Everton,Kenneth Wolstenholme andCliff Michelmore were the commentators. [cite booktitle=Match Of The Day 40th Anniversary
author=Martyn Smith
pages=pp.10-11]
An early attempt at live league football was made in 1960-61, when ITV agreed a deal worth £150,000 with the
Football League to screen 26 matches; the very first live league match was on SaturdaySeptember 10 1960 between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers atBloomfield Road . The match kicked off at 6:50pm with live coverage starting at 7:30 under the title "The Big Game". A major blow to the TV moguls was the absence of big box office drawStanley Matthews through injury, and the game ended 1-0 to Bolton in front of a half-empty stadium. [cite booktitle=My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes
author=Gary Imlach
pages=pp.152-153]
However ITV withdrew from the deal after first Arsenal and then Tottenham Hotspur refused them permission to shoot at their matches against Newcastle United and Aston Villa respectively, and the Football League demanded a dramatic increase in player appearance payments. ITV showed the "
Nat King Cole Show" instead, while ironically both matches received highlights coverage from the BBC on "Sports Special".However ITV moved again into football, albeit tentatively, in 1962 when
Anglia Television launched "Match of the Week ", which showed highlights of matches from aroundEast Anglia . The first match shown was Ipswich Town's 3-2 defeat at the hands of Wolves atPortman Road onSeptember 22 1962 . [cite web
author=John Bourn
url=http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/john.bourn/Page6.htm
title=History of football on ITVNote that the reference says "Match of the Week" started in 1963; however according to [http://www.soccerbase.com/head2.sd?team2id=2848&team1id=1372 Soccerbase] , Ipswich's 3-2 loss to Wolves actually occurred in 1962.]
Tyne Tees Television in the North East of England began broadcasting local matches soon after under the title "Shoot". League football was soon to gain a nationwide audience once more. In 1964, the BBC introduced "Match of the Day " - initially broadcast on the new BBC2. The first match was Liverpool's 3-2 victory over Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August, and the estimated audience of 20,000 was considerably less than the number of paying customers at the ground. At the time BBC2 could only be received in the London area, although by the end ofMatch Of The Day 's first season it could be sampled in the Midlands. The programme transferred to BBC1 in the wake of England's 1966 World Cup win and at last could be received by television viewers across the UK.The World Cup
There was live coverage of World Cup football on UK screens in 1954 and 1958 - however only selected matches were available. In 1954,
Kenneth Wolstenholme provided commentary on the few televised matches for BBC fromSwitzerland - including the quarter-final between Hungary and Brazil. Athunderstorm overthe Alps cut off the picture and many irate viewers wrote in to complain that the BBC had pulled the plug. [cite booktitle=50 Sporting Years And It's Still Not All Over
author=Kenneth Wolstenholme
pages= pp.113-118] The 1958 tournament in
Sweden saw a greater range of matches thanks to the newEurovision Network ; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the Scottish FA, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches may be hit. [cite booktitle=My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes
author=Gary Imlach
pages=pp.96-109] The 1962 World Cup in
Chile was covered in delayed form by the BBC with film having to be carried by air via theUnited States back to Britain. Matches were generally seen three days after they were played, though every match was covered by the BBC with commentary.With intercontinental communications satellites in their infancy and videotape a new advance, the first tournament to gain widespread international live coverage was the 1966 tournament, which was held in England. The tournament, which England won, increased the popularity of the sport. With more football viewers than ever, "Match of the Day" thrived - switching from
BBC Two toBBC One to reach a wider audience. ITV's regional coverage had also expanded during this period with London weekend company ATV launching "Star Soccer" in October 1965,Southern Television 's "Southern Soccer" and ABC's "World of Soccer" also began to appear regularly in the "TV Times " Sunday schedules.London Weekend Television 's "The Big Match " started in 1968, and eventually the entire ITV network's football coverage would be broadcast under its title.Rise of live League coverage
The demand for football grew through the 1970s and early 1980s, and the decision to start screening live league matches was almost inevitable; a deal was struck for the start of the 1983-84 season and the first live league match since 1960 was screened on ITV, between Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest, on
October 2 1983 . Spurs would also feature in the BBC's first live league match atManchester United on a Friday night a few weeks later.By the late 1980s the value of live TV coverage had rocketed; while a two-year contract for rights in 1983 had cost just £5.2m, the four-year contract exclusively landed by ITV in 1988 cost £44m, a fourfold increase per year. There was now a situation where live football was on TV almost every Sunday afternoon from about November onwards, as ITV screened top-flight football most weeks and the
BBC had the rights to theFA Cup that occupied other weekends.With top flight football proving particularly lucrative, in 1992 the clubs of the
Football League First Division voted to quit the league "en masse" and set up their own league, thePremier League . They eventually opted to agree a deal withSky Sports rather than ITV or the BBC, meaning leading live league football was no longer available onterrestrial television (although matches from the First Division (previously Second Division) continued to be shown on a regional basis for a time by ITV).Football on television today
Coverage of Premier League now dominates football on English television, especially financially; the contracts agreed between the league and broadcasters
BSkyB in 1992 and 1997 were worth £191.5m and £670m respectively. However, theEuropean Union objected to what it saw as amonopoly on television rights and demanded the 2007 contract be split into separate packages; eventually Sky won four of the six available packages, with the other two were taken bySetanta Sports .When Sky won the rights, it was the first time live football had been regularly screened (usually Sundays and Mondays in the early years) throughout the season, as previous restrictions on the number of games had meant ITV had tended to begin to show matches (bar the odd early-season glamour game) in October or November and focus on the title run-in.
:"See also: Premier League media coverage"
The future
On November 6, 2007 it was announced that Sky Sports and the BBC will show live Football League matches in England and Wales from the 2009-2010 season. [ cite news | author = Football League | url = http://www.football-league.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10794~1160914,00.html | title = FOOTBALL LEAGUE AGREES HISTORIC DEAL WITH SKY SPORTS AND BBC] 10 live Football League Championship matches will be shown on BBC TV meaning live league football will return to British terrestrial television for the first time since 2001.
The BBC holds terrestrial UK rights to Premier League highlights until 2010 on "Match of the Day".
Kickoff times
The Premier League is virtually unique in domestic football in
Europe in its agreement over kick-off times. In an agreement withthe Football Association , it does not allow live TV broadcasts or the release of clips on mobile phones at the traditional English kick-off time (Saturday 3pm); Scottish league games are also not televised during the same window (2:45-5:15). It is claimed that this ensures that fans still attend lower league games. However, these broadcasting restrictions can be circumvented to some extent either by subscribing to overseas satellite broadcasters (Setanta broadcasts a live game to its viewers in Ireland; thus creating somewhat of agrey market ), or through various streaming networks on the internet. Also, live radio broadcasts are permitted, both nationally and locally; these may be simulcast on the internet, depending on the broadcaster. In recent years,Sky Sports has shown 3:00 games on tape delay through the "Football First " show, either in full or as extended highlights. Live 3:00 games have sometimes aired on non-Saturday holidays.The Premier League and Sky maintain that whilst grey market viewing of games is not illegal on the part of the viewer, it is illegal for anyone (such as a
public house ) to make such services openly available. This has in the past lead to heavy fines for public houses in the United Kingdom which have shown 3:00 games in their establishments. More recently, the legality of such fines has been disputed, and a number of Crown Court cases have been reported in which publicans successfully challenged the Premier League's position. [cite news | author = Barrie Clement| url = http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article357239.ece| title = Pubs win the right to show football on Saturday afternoons | publisher = The Independent | date =12 April 2006 | accessdate = 2006-08-08 ]In any event, each weekend, as many as five Premier League games kick-off at other times of day for the purpose of being televised. All of them air live either on Sky or Setanta. The main kick-off times for TV games are 12:45 and 5:30pm on Saturdays, 1:30 and 4:00pm on Sundays, and 8:00pm on Mondays. Additional Sunday games may kick-off before 1:30 or at 3:00 as circumstances warrant, such as to minimize fixture congestion for teams competing in Europe (teams who played a UEFA Cup match on the previous Thursday will normally play on Sunday, whether the match is televised or not). Generally, very few local rivalry games will kick-off at 5:15 on Saturday or 4:00 on Sunday to minimize the potential for crowd trouble. Many local police forces favour earlier starts for these games because they would occur soon after pubs open, reducing the chance for alcohol to be consumed before the game.
Notes
References
*Horrie, Chris (2002). "Premiership", Pocket Books, ISBN 0-7434-4065-X
* [http://www.le.ac.uk/footballresearch/resources/factsheets/fs8.html Fact Sheet 8: British Football on Television] (Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, University of Leicester, 2002)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.