Television: Football's addiction to the small screen

What do Michael Thomas against Liverpool in 1989, David Platt against Belgium in 1990 and David Beckham against Greece in 2001 have in common? They were all architects of last minute rescue acts, and you can now add Len Blavatnik to that list.

Blavatnik is the Russian-born billionaire who has seemingly saved Setanta Sports from going to the wall. His purchase of 51% of the Irish broadcaster has all but ensured they will continue to screen 46 matches next year, but most importantly, means the Premier League’s smaller members do not have to face some nervous meetings with their bank managers this summer.

Television has made football rich and in Sky’s case at least, football has made television rich in return. Broadcasting rights for the Premier League are sold to companies both at home and abroad for astronomical sums – helping to fund the ever increasing wages of English football’s biggest stars.

Yet Setanta’s near collapse would have had many a Premier League chairman loosening their tie with anxiety. The fact is, many clubs rely heavily on the income generated by the sale of broadcasting rights. Smaller clubs such as Bolton and Blackburn – where season ticket and merchandise sales are pitiful compared to those enjoyed at Manchester United and Arsenal, need the regular instalments of the TV money to make sure they are at least competitive and retain their Premier League status.

It is because of this that football’s obsession with television is beginning to look increasingly irresponsible. It’s said that Setanta requires 1.9m subscribers just to break even. That’s essentially asking 1.9m households to pay £12 per month on top of the money they already pay for Sky Sports, for lower quality games at inconvenient times. The only surprise is that Setanta were only 700,000 subscribers short of their target, not that they failed to meet it at all.

But surely the Premier League should be trusted to look at proposals such as this and clearly see that they are not viable business plans (sorry to sound all Dragons Den)? By selling themselves to the highest bidder – no matter what the reputation, ability to deliver on their promises or plans of that bidder are, the Premier League is in reality selling English football rather cheaply.

Television has a stranglehold on football, and it won’t let go. Both the league and the clubs themselves simply can’t live without it. The likes of Sky pay for the right not just to screen games, but to dictate when games take place, and what time they kick off. It means we now play games at lunchtime on a Saturday, with little consideration for the geographical location of the teams involved. It means we have football at tea time on a Saturday – often played in front of less than full houses and even smaller audiences at home.

Television is also a key cause of the growing financial divide between the Premier League and the Football League. Dropping out of the Premier League can cause a shortfall in television revenue of around £25m per year. Is it responsible to have two such contrasting television deals – so obviously making the rich richer, and the poor poorer? Yes there is more demand for Premier League football, but more efforts need to be made to make sure the riches of the Premier League filter down to the lower rungs of the English football ladder.

We all know that football has become more of a business in recent years, but it is said that there is no room for emotion in business. It’s hard to imagine football without emotion, and when you look at the extremely small number of people who genuinely make money from football as a result of investment – maybe it’s time football stopped trying so hard to be a business and concentrated a little more on being a sport.