Here is a diary for last week:
Monday – Sunderland versus Everton
Tuesday – Barcelona versus Celtic and six others plus live coverage of Manchester getting flooded
Wednesday – Bruges versus Leicester City, among others
Thursday – Feyenoord versus apathetic FA Cup winners Manchester United
Friday – Chelsea versus Liverpool
Saturday – Everton (again) versus Middlesbrough
Super Sunday – featuring Palace versus Stoke City
This week might have been the first seven day week where you could watch live football featuring teams from the top tier of football in the UK or Western Europe.
Did anyone actually watch all of these games? On TV I mean. I suspect a few of you might have seen the last game on the list, but surely no-one anywhere stayed in and watched all of these games.
Even for Palace fans, the novelty of being live on TV seems to have worn off, although this week that might have been the Stoke Factor.
Football fans are being utterly swamped with games this season. There is a new Sky deal in place and strong competition, especially during the week from BT, and our subscriptions have funded that expansion.
But it seems too much, especially as some of the summer sport seasons, like cricket, haven’t finished yet.
Back in the day, a live football game was an event, a break from the interminable TV diet of soap operas, game shows and sitcoms.
In the 1980’s it became a matter of national importance whether BBC or ITV would be allowed to show one live game a week. The cultural structure of the nation was under threat if any weekend game was played at a time other than 3:00pm on a Saturday.
Well, the recent half hour revival of ‘Are You Being Served’ has proved that sitcoms have had their day, and maybe live footie has stepped into the hole, though not on BBC or ITV.
It has been a while since I watched a soap opera as I could never get engaged enough to follow anything for so many days each week.
A football match should be an event with room for build-up before and analysis after. But now the space between games has been filled with more games.
Football has become wallpaper – something that is all around but often forgotten.
Of course, I do care about football, but I care about Palace. The sensation I have when I watch Palace, and that sensation is better live anyway, can’t be repeated watching two other teams playing on telly.
Coincidentally, the same week that we had these seven days of live football saw the nation go utterly nuts about a once a week event where TV channels were prepared to pay huge money for the rights.
It has been like the debate over whether we could see one live game a week, but apparently far more important.
And it has been about watching people bake cakes.
As a result, ten and a half million people watched people baking half cooked, flat and soggy Yorkshire Puddings rather than the joy of Leicester playing very well in Belgium.
The Bake Off took on its own soap opera plot when Mel Geidroyc and Croydon’s own Sue Perkins walked away from the programme, and the nation breathlessly waits to see what Paul and Mary will do … apparently.
Channel 4 risk becoming the Mark Goldberg of broadcasters. They have very publically spent a lot of money buying something that may hardly exist. Goldberg bought Palace the club back in 1996, but he didn’t buy the ground. He also bought a side that had just been relegated and without the massive parachute payments that exist now, funded an ambitious promotion campaign out of his own pocket.
He almost matched The KLF in burning cash as quickly as possible (*Note 1). However good his intentions may have been, it turned out to be a personally disastrous move for the very soon to be former multi-millionaire.
Channel 4 at least have a big marquee and some mobile ovens, but won’t own the ground they want to put them on.
But it might mean that BT Sport get some viewers for the Champions League next year.
*Note 1 – One for the teenagers.
