Topic: LFC argue for fairer distribution of overseas media rights.

[Siannn.]

Yeah but the gap between 5th and 6th currently isn't that much just 6 or 7 points. Do we want to see the top four 30 points clear?

Of course we do. La Liga's so entertaining, y'know?

[Breitner]

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

We either look for these sorts of revenues or we don't at all, It's that simple.

Exactly. I'd love it all to go up in smoke but in reality that will never happen so we either get real and ruthless or end up like Everton reliving past glories and supporting whoever plays the mancs

[_Lfc_]

The problem in my view is that the gap would become even wider. No Everton finishing 4th (which might not happen anyway in the near future), no Spurs "breaking" into the Top 4,... People are talking about the fact that people want to watch the Mancs, Liverpool or Arsenal and that they all deserve the big money. Well, to be watching Liverpool, the Mancs or Arsenal 38 times a season you NEED the likes of Bolton, Villa or Stoke. Otherwise, you don't have a league and nobody will be paying for that...

Yeah and bolton villa and stoke will be getting money for people tuning in to watch them.

[exiledintheusa]

Of course we do. La Liga's so entertaining, y'know?

Top 7 are sperated by 2 points at the moment - much more exciting than the Premiership so far*.


*obviously this will change at Barca and real will run-away. Or will they?

[Hymer Red]

It's a bit late for Shanks quotes and socialism don't you think?

Well I for one would rather live my life thinking and acting that way than the Thatchers way of I'm allright jack, I'll take all I can get get and stuff all the rest. They can sink or swim on their own attitude that has led us directly to this financial and social crises that we are suffering from right now after being implemented by the politicians & bankers for 30 years. But hey this is a footy forum and we should try and keep party politics out of it I think

[Thiago]

I don't see why TV revenue should be treated any differently to any other source. If 1 club draws more viewers, they should be rewarded accordingly.

It's generated by the club naturally.

[_Lfc_]

Of course we do. La Liga's so entertaining, y'know?

Barcelonas recent dominence can't really be blamed on the money they recieve from abroad can it? Xavi Messi,Iniesta Puyol,Pedro,Busquets and Valdez are all homegrown? Malaga,Atlético and co have all been spending pretty big lately too.

[Bastion Of Invincibility]

About time we took the lead on something instead of twiddling our thumbs while the Mancs and London clubs march past us.

Football is already dead. First in gets to strip off the most flesh is the way I see it.

[Cpt_Reina]

It wont be long until the 'big clubs' start to try and force things like this through by threatening to break away from the Premier League.

That european super league keeps raising its head.

[geoffstrong]

This will make sense to a guy who owns NESN which has the TV rights to the Boston Redsoxs and Bruins amongst others, perhaps this was part of our attraction to JH, major money to be made if you can negotiate your own TV rights!

Whilst lamenting what Breitner says,  he is right, socialism died with new labour and football clubs became brands when the Premiership was set up, we cannot go back sadly much as I would wish we could.

[foreveragnome]

Ah fuck it, it's too late to be debating this.

This just doesn't sit right with me, it's all very Tory-like.

[jillc]

It wont be long until the 'big clubs' start to try and force things like this through by threatening to break away from the Premier League.

That european super league keeps raising its head.

The day I seriously finish with football, what a crazy game this is.   

[Graham Smith]

I don't see why TV revenue should be treated any differently to any other source. If 1 club draws more viewers, they should be rewarded accordingly.

It's generated by the club naturally.

No it isn't.

Your naming rights and sponsorship are reflections mainly of the quality of your football, your history, culture and attitudes. Sponsors want to be associated with what you represent and your success (and exposure I accept).

TV rights rely upon the quality of the product and this has a direct relevance to the other Clubs as the quality and competiveness rely upon the other Clubs, their supporters (spectacle, atmosphere etc) and as such there is an interdependence.

Who wants to see anyone, including us, battering 16 Clubs home and away and the league being decided upon fixtures among an elite of five or six?

[Graham Smith]

Wouldn't we all? Unfortunately modern football is a hulking great monster that doesn't reward such morals

Because your attitude has been allowed to pervade.

[Veinticinco de Mayo]

Fucking bad timing from Ayre in my book.  There is far more important news regarding LFC running right now.

[Tepid water]

No it isn't.

Your naming rights and sponsorship are reflections mainly of the quality of your football, your history, culture and attitudes. Sponsors want to be associated with what you represent and your success (and exposure I accept).

TV rights rely upon the quality of the product and this has a direct relevance to the other Clubs as the quality and competiveness rely upon the other Clubs, their supporters (spectacle, atmosphere etc) and as such there is an interdependence.

Who wants to see anyone, including us, battering 16 Clubs home and away and the league being decided upon fixtures among an elite of five or six?

I have to say that overseas tv rights are also a result of history/attitudes etc more so than home tv rights.

[stoa]

Who wants to see anyone, including us, battering 16 Clubs home and away and the league being decided upon fixtures among an elite of five or six?

Well said. It would work a couple of years, but then it would get boring...

[Carlito Roberto]

Barcelonas recent dominence can't really be blamed on the money they recieve from abroad can it? Xavi Messi,Iniesta Puyol,Pedro,Busquets and Valdez are all homegrown? Malaga,Atlético and co have all been spending pretty big lately too.

Yeah but the reason they've been able develop so many quality homegrown players is because their academy is light years ahead of everyone else's and naturally that costs a hell of a lot of money.

[Graham Smith]

This will make sense to a guy who owns NESN which has the TV rights to the Boston Redsoxs and Bruins amongst others, perhaps this was part of our attraction to JH, major money to be made if you can negotiate your own TV rights!

Whilst lamenting what Breitner says,  he is right, socialism died with new labour and football clubs became brands when the Premiership was set up, we cannot go back sadly much as I would wish we could.

Henry has tweeted that LFC v MUFC sees a global audience three times that of the Superbowl.

Ayre's strings clearly being pulled again.

[iamrobk]

Fucking bad timing from Ayre in my book.  There is far more important news regarding LFC running right now.

Just curious, what news are you referring to?  The upcoming Hillsborough debate?

[exiledintheusa]

Henry has tweeted that LFC v MUFC sees a global audience three times that of the Superbowl.

Ayre's strings clearly being pulled again.

Do you expect Ayres to come out and just state his own feelings or follow that of his employer? I will be very interested t ohear Kenny's thoughts on this whole episode when it comes up in the press conference this week.

[Thiago]

No it isn't.

Your naming rights and sponsorship are reflections mainly of the quality of your football, your history, culture and attitudes. Sponsors want to be associated with what you represent and your success (and exposure I accept).

TV rights rely upon the quality of the product and this has a direct relevance to the other Clubs as the quality and competiveness rely upon the other Clubs, their supporters (spectacle, atmosphere etc) and as such there is an interdependence.

Who wants to see anyone, including us, battering 16 Clubs home and away and the league being decided upon fixtures among an elite of five or six?

Yes it is. The bigger reputation a club has, the quality of football, the amount of supporters a club has - whatever you want to put it down to, directly relates to the amount of people who watch the game on TV.

It's exactly the same - bigger clubs earn TV companies more revenue than smaller clubs do and the payment they receive should reflect that.

Should everyone throw their ticket revenue into a big pot and share it evenly now too? It's nonsense that one form of revenue is divided between clubs while others are based on what they generate themselves.

[Graham Smith]

Fucking bad timing from Ayre in my book.  There is far more important news regarding LFC running right now.

The Hillsborough issue has really only blown up late today. I suspect his interview was earlier today or even before today.

[Veinticinco de Mayo]

Just curious, what news are you referring to?  The upcoming Hillsborough debate?

Or lack thereof...

[exiledintheusa]

Just curious, what news are you referring to?  The upcoming Hillsborough debate?

He is, go check out the Talksport thread....some serious underhand tactics going on on the back-benches.

[CHOPPER]

Well I for one would rather live my life thinking and acting that way than the Thatchers way of I'm allright jack, I'll take all I can get get and stuff all the rest. They can sink or swim on their own attitude that has led us directly to this financial and social crises that we are suffering from right now after being implemented by the politicians & bankers for 30 years. But hey this is a footy forum and we should try and keep party politics out of it I think

I think we all have an idealistic view on how it should be, or more to the point how it used to be. But this is the here and now and though I applaud your view, we're at a juncture now with the club - we either get on board and tap into every bit of possible revenue we can, or we don't, and if we don't, we repeat what we have been doing for the last 20 years that has left us playing catch up to the likes of a Spurs as an embarrasing example of where we are in the financial stakes. One thing we have done well, or at least did do up until the early 90's - was learn from our mistakes. History, and no matter how much we mightn't like - can not repeat itself once again.

[djschembri]

Henry has tweeted that LFC v MUFC sees a global audience three times that of the Superbowl.

Ayre's strings clearly being pulled again.

John Henry tweeted that months ago. John Henry is also Ayre's boss.

[iamrobk]

Or lack thereof...

Ah ok.  Yeah, I really hope it goes on as scheduled, but I don't want to get anymore off-topic here so I'll leave it at that.  Just wanted to make sure I understood you correctly.

[Veinticinco de Mayo]

The Hillsborough issue has really only blown up late today. I suspect his interview was earlier today or even before today.

Clearly timed for the Man U game the interview but I would have preferred them to keep their heads down until after the debate on Monday.  Even before todays late news

[Graham Smith]

Yes it is. The bigger reputation a club has, the quality of football, the amount of supporters a club has - whatever you want to put it down to, directly relates to the amount of people who watch the game on TV.

It's exactly the same - bigger clubs earn TV companies more revenue than smaller clubs do and the payment they receive should reflect that.

Should everyone throw their ticket revenue into a big pot and share it evenly now too? It's nonsense that one form of revenue is divided between clubs while others are based on what they generate themselves.

Say what you want but TV rights are linked more to the spectatcle and unpredictability.

Simple question, do you think a league dominated by United and City for the next 10 years would be more or less successful TV rights wise?

[Licky]

Yeah let's all sit back with our high moral socialist values hoping a sugar daddy will buy us so we can compete rather than using our commercial potential.  I'd like to see some of these peoples views once a few more mansours/abramovichs have come in and pumped everton, wigan and Stoke up so they can start attracting players with vast wages.

[Shanks1965]

I've asked a lot of lads in the last 12 months what would their reaction have been had some rich arab (other nationalities and cultures also have lots of money) come in and bought the club and given Kenny £300m to buy players and we were now watching the likes of Messi and co wearing the red shirt and looking down on Man United? Would they like it? Would they be happy? Some would be but I know I wouldnt. This to me is different though. If this came off we would be earning the rewards of our history of success. We would have EARNED it so why is that unfair?

I wish we could go back to the good old days too but we cant but I do want to go forward by earning the success we acheive, not by someone buying it for us.

[exiledintheusa]

I've asked a lot of lads in the last 12 months what would their reaction have been had some rich arab (other nationalities and cultures also have lots of money) come in and bought the club and given Kenny £300m to buy players and we were now watching the likes of Messi and co wearing the red shirt and looking down on Man United? Would they like it? Would they be happy? Some would be but I know I wouldnt. This to me is different though. If this came off we would be earning the rewards of our history of success. We would have EARNED it so why is that unfair?

I wish we could go back to the good old days too but we cant but I do want to go forward by earning the success we acheive, not by someone buying it for us.

Thats the thing though mate back in 1992 when Sky flashed it's knickers not one of the then 'big' clubs had any objection because they knew they would have the chance to make bucket loads of money. This is just a bigger representation of the same problem that arose 20 years ago, overseas markets are flashing more than thier knickers and its hard to look away.

[TomDcs]

We would play against Real, Barca, the two Milan clubs, Juve, Benfica, Bayern Munich, Ajax......you can see where this is going. Massive Tv rights for those games, massive product to sell globally.

My first thought was along these lines, the breakaway eauropean league. As good as that'd be, it's the beginning of the end of proper football in reality.

[Thiago]

Say what you want but TV rights are linked more to the spectatcle and unpredictability.

Simple question, do you think a league dominated by United and City for the next 10 years would be more or less successful TV rights wise?

What has sharing the TV revenue based on your draw got to do with City? They aren't one of the elite clubs with a large supporter base, they won't be a major benefactor of this.

Why are clubs being encouraged to be self-efficient and then having their hands tied when it comes to entitled revenue they don't get?

Ayre is right in what he says - Bolton don't have as many viewers as us, it's economically sound to expect them to be paid less.

[Veinticinco de Mayo]

Say what you want but TV rights are linked more to the spectatcle and unpredictability.

Simple question, do you think a league dominated by United and City for the next 10 years would be more or less successful TV rights wise?

I thought that was the reason that La Liga were looking at moving to a collective rights deal.  The idea being that despite the global pre-eminence of Barca and Real the total foreign TV rights pot that La Liga pulls in is tiny compared to that obtained by the Premiership.  The idea was that by having one more competitive package they could redress that balance.

[Graham Smith]

I've asked a lot of lads in the last 12 months what would their reaction have been had some rich arab (other nationalities and cultures also have lots of money) come in and bought the club and given Kenny £300m to buy players and we were now watching the likes of Messi and co wearing the red shirt and looking down on Man United? Would they like it? Would they be happy? Some would be but I know I wouldnt. This to me is different though. If this came off we would be earning the rewards of our history of success. We would have EARNED it so why is that unfair?

I wish we could go back to the good old days too but we cant but I do want to go forward by earning the success we acheive, not by someone buying it for us.

The difference is that we would be destroying the exact competition we crave and respect most.

It isn't an argument to say "it's been happening for 20 years, so what?" or even to say "Look back to the 30s and see rich locals pumping money into Arsenal and Huddersfield so they dominated football".

The position now is that the potential gulf that will be created completely destroys competition and undervalues success whereas in the past there was less of a gulf and more of a chance of a superstar local player being uncovered or a manager clicking having an influence on the winners.

We should be working upon a more level playing field, not less.

[Shanks1965]

Thats the thing though mate back in 1992 when Sky flashed it's knickers not one of the then 'big' clubs had any objection because they knew they would have the chance to make bucket loads of money. This is just a bigger representation of the same problem that arose 20 years ago, overseas markets are flashing more than thier knickers and its hard to look away.

Said for years mate if Sky offered them twice as much money to play in front of empty stadiums they'd take it.

[tmwild]

The glory hungry side of my brain says: "The league is already decided by money and this is just another form of income the same as shirt sponsors or stadium naming rights. Are we sharing the Standard Chartered or Warrior cash with Wigan or Bolton? Man Utd don't share their gate revenues with Norwich, why should TV be any different?"



I see that side of the argument but it doesn't excuse widening the gap. Can you imagine going to Goodison every season and it being a massive upset if Everton won? I'd hate that.

In fairness to Ayre though, his job is to maximise revenues and realise LFC's global potential as a brand. He's doing it well.

[Graham Smith]

What has sharing the TV revenue based on your draw got to do with City? They aren't one of the elite clubs with a large supporter base, they won't be a major benefactor of this.

Why are clubs being encouraged to be self-efficient and then having their hands tied when it comes to entitled revenue they don't get?

Ayre is right in what he says - Bolton don't have as many viewers as us, it's economically sound to expect them to be paid less.

The point I was making was about competiveness. A league dominated by two or three Clubs (more than it has been) will die.