In the past few days, there have been rumours that Google and Apple are both considering a bid for the broadcasting rights to the Premier League when they come up for renewal later this year. They remain just that – rumours – and it seems likely that Apple won’t bid, while there is nothing to indicate yet that Google may consider making a sizeable investment in English football broadcast rights. But with both companies expected to move further into the TV and broadcasting industry, it does show other leagues and sports that it may be worth thinking outside the traditional broadcasting methods. Indeed, for some, it may be the only way to grow and survive.

Under the current broadcast rights deal, Sky is paying around £1.6bn to show 115 live Premier League games per season, with ESPN broadcasting the final package of games. Under a deal with the European Commission, the Premier League had to ensure that the six packages were divided between more than one broadcaster. That deal has now expired, although the Premier League is unlikely to risk another legal battle by awarding all games to Sky (or, more unlikely, another broadcaster).

The amounts of money involved are quite staggering and few broadcasters can afford them. Even lower down the English league pyramid structure, where rights are nowhere near as expensive, the cost of producing live games or even highlight shows are still high enough to be questionable in terms of cost-effectiveness. Due to budget cuts, the BBC opted not to show Football League highlights during the recent festive period, despite a full set of fixtures, while in non-League Premier Sports opted to pull out of screening Darlington versus Barrow last season rather than risk sending a crew to a game that stood a possibility of being called off.

And yet with the growth of the internet and the willingness over the past few seasons for broadcasters to snap up as many sport and football rights as possible, fans have been treated to a proliferation of football across a range of platforms to the extent that it’s almost expected that non-Premier League games and highlights will be if not free, then at least readily available. Never mind that football has had its fingers burnt twice in the past with the collapse of both ITV Digital and Setanta, the expectation is there.

This, however, overlooks the fact that if non-Premier League football was thought to be profitable for broadcasters, they would be rushing to show more of it. Ratings for ESPN’s foreign league coverage are low in the UK, while the expense involved for lower league games is high. That none of the commercial broadcasters other than Sky have made a serious play for these live matches in recent years tells its own story. Only the BBC, with its public service commitments, could make a sensible argument for broadcasting lower league football, and with their proposed Delivering Quality First cuts – especially around local radio commentaries – even Auntie appears to be scaling back lower league coverage.

This, then, is the state of football broadcasting in the UK at the moment. Rights for live Premier League games are so expensive to bid for that only a small handful of broadcasters – Sky, ESPN and, given their recent acquisitions of French rights, probably al-Jazeera – are able to offer the vast sums required, while the lower leagues are too expensive to produce to make a serious challenge to Sky for the rights (or, in the case of Premier Sports and their deal to broadcast non-League football, hardly enriching for the clubs involved).

Which is why looking outside of the traditional mediums could be seen as a good thing. For the Premier League, should Apple and Google, two companies with the financial clout to challenge Sky, decide to bid then it could herald the much-needed shake-up of the current near-monopoly on top flight rights. For lower leagues, exploring non-linear options are, quite simply, a must if they are to at least stand a chance of reaching existing fans and new audiences. A new generation of internet connected app-friendly televisions are on the way powered by familiar OS and Android platforms. While it may be a tad hyperbolic to proclaim these will change the way you watch TV forever, we’re already seeing the current generation of IPTVs having a slight shift on the way we consume our television. The world of streaming, tablets, phones and TV is amalgamating as one.

Of the realistic options, Apple appear to be the most curious of those rumoured. The tech company already has a deal in place with Sky to show archive footage through iTunes, while Sky’s successful Sky Go mobile and tablet apps currently offer a slick Premier League broadcasting experience on the iPhone and iPad.

Bidding for expensive UK Premier League rights would also represent something of a risk for Apple, given football’s standing in the US, although globally, given the Premier League’s appeal, it could prove to be a sound piece of business, especially in the long term if it secures the US rights to the competition given the growing appeal of the “EPL” on that side of the Atlantic. But any movement on this, if it were to materialise, would as likely depend on the offerings of Apple TV, how it develops and whether it becomes a mass-market product.

The search giant Google, however, would seem to be much more of a natural fit for broadcasting rights. They already own YouTube, which signed a two year deal to broadcast the Indian Premier League cricket. Under YouTube’s stewardship, the channel racked up a cool 50 million views. In comparison, current rights holder Times India’s channel, which is produced in conjunction with Google, has just under 15 millions views. The appetite and familiarity with well known sporting brands is, it appears, present online and is not discouraged by a non-traditional media company owning the rights.

For Google, the infrastructure (including Android), not to mention the money, is in place, although one complication may be the ongoing copyright dispute between the Premier League and YouTube. Google have also recently shed many extra projects as they get behind their core offerings (while continuing to innovate), and the video Hangouts on Google+ raise an interesting possibility of shared viewing experiences between friends or fans of clubs through special individual channels. There are so many possibilities for sports broadcasting on Google – be it TV, apps, online or social network – it would be easy to spend a whole article speculating on what these may be, but suffice to say the barriers offered by traditional broadcasters would be broken down should the leagues be willing to do so – itself a big sticking point.

It is also worth, briefly, considering Facebook. The social behemoth may not have been mentioned thus far but they have already shown that, on a smaller scale, they can very competently handle sports broadcasting. Budweiser and the FA’s streaming of the Extra Preliminary FA Cup Qualifying tie between Ascot United and Wembley FC may have been a one-off novelty but was a smooth, entertaining and enjoyable experience. Liking Budweiser’s page was a small price to pay for a professional broadcast and the online viewing figures of 27,000 were more than even ITV4 gets for some Europa League matches.

Facebook’s goal of being at the heart of everybody’s lives would fit with acquiring sports rights (especially as the majority of work making it broadcast-ready would probably be done by the partners). It is not hard to envisage live streaming of games through the social network or via the Facebook app on your TV. Again, the restrictions here are unlikely to be on Facebook’s part but from the Premier League or any other body selling their live broadcast rights.

For the Premier League, they have the luxury of picking and choosing, such is the strength and popularity of the product they are selling. Whether they’d be willing to relinquish their grip and allow any sort of fragmentation from the new media companies potentially interested in their rights is another question. For the lower leagues, it is up to them to seize the initiative.

What would the Football League be worth if the rights were sold to Facebook or Google? Would more people be inclined to subscribe or sign-up to an app on a new generation IPTV? Could revenue be raised through pay-per-view subscriptions as well as longer subscriptions? Would lower league or non-League games attract higher audiences if they were streamed via the official page on Facebook or via YouTube? And if these games were readily available to the casual lower league fan, what impact would this have on attendances? None of these questions are easy or even possible to answer, but need to be asked or considered, at the very least.

Or could we yet see a situation where it is not the league who negotiate the deal for the rights, but an enterprising club? Think of the individual rights that are negotiated by La Liga clubs in Spain, but then fragmented and offered to a range of platforms and tech or social companies, not the traditional broadcasters.

Already the individual leagues risk being left far behind when it comes to mobile or TV app development, if they have even considered it. Broadcasters and other companies know that mobile viewing – be it on a phone or tablet – will provide a significant market in the future. Whether the leagues are following suit is debatable.

We could potentially reach a point where an enterprising club with an abnormal fan base for the division they are in – say Luton or Bradford, for example – decide to cut out the middle man and go direct to Google and stream through the official Luton Town YouTube channel and offer special Luton Town viewing hangouts with post-match viewer-engaged content via Hangouts on Google+. Or perhaps the game will be streamed via the official Bradford City Facebook page and IPTV app, with all the social benefits that this brings, not to mention the marketing advantages such a channel offers to the club.

And if these lower league clubs are successful, the bigger clubs will almost certainly want their slice of the action. Perhaps we may face a future where you purchase the Facebook app but opt to watch through the dedicated Manchester City channel rather than the main broadcast, or a host of other fragmented options, while chatting to other fans of the same persuasion during the match. Fanciful? Perhaps. But you can already see the foundations of virtual stadiums just through this method, and this probably only discusses a small part of what could be achieved.

But this does get ahead of what would currently be required. For both Football League and Premier League clubs, there would need to be a majority vote to abandon the collective agreement on income from these football rights. To do so would be hugely controversial and go against the very fabric of the game in Britain. Yet with governing bodies often some way behind clubs and technology in both adoption and thinking, the question is how prepared clubs would be to miss out if a new route makes them more money.

Certainly the aforementioned Manchester City are already leading the way, digitally. Their website is rightly lauded as one of the best in the country and their YouTube channel is both slick and engaging. Should opportunities open up for exploiting online viewing, it is clubs such as City who are likely to be at the forefront. The infrastructure and planning is in place, it is just the league itself that prevents them from maximising their online potential in terms of use of live broadcasts and highlights.

Given football broadcast rights are complicated enough as it is, perhaps we may see another layer added for tablet or TV apps rather than channels accessed through a browser. Perhaps it is these clubs may look to exploit separately rather than collectively. Could online prove an exception and break the collective agreement? Technologically, there are many attractive and exciting reasons for doing so. Legally it may prove more different, and morally it does not sit comfortably with the idea of keeping the game competitive (and would, as likely, provoke a similar reaction to Liverpool’s executive Ian Ayre raising the notion of clubs individually negotiating their international broadcast rights).

Whether these changes in technology and broadcast viewing habits would improve top flight football, or simply serve to make it more tribal and take it further away from its roots is an another question, although one you feel the clubs and league won’t worry to much about if it proves successful, even if they are unable to negotiate individual rights. In an online medium very much concerned with openness and equality, any success in this area could serve to make the bigger clubs even richer. For the Premier League it’s a welcome addition to have on the table. For the smaller clubs, it may become a necessity.

What we didn’t know until Scotzine pointed it out in the comments was that fans of Aberdeen’s opponents that day, Celtic, made exactly the same point with a banner of their own that read “It’s time to put fans before TV”.

It’s not exactly a new story that television has become the dominant force in scheduling games. The days of uniform Saturday 3pm kickoffs are, of course, numbered in Britain, and have been for some time.

Still, the growing disaffection with the last-minute schedule changes and difficulties on group travel that result from fan unfriendly kickoff times is certainly spreading. For once, Rangers fans agree with their Old Firm rivals, this month also holding up a “Fans Before TV” banner.

Moreover, as you can tell from the photo, that Aberdeen-Celtic semi-final was not exactly a packed house, with Scotzine noting “The stadium was far from full with around 20,000 seats left empty, a sizeable chunk in the Aberdeen end.”

In part, this seems to be because the 12.45pm kick-off time did not take into account train timetables: the earliest train to arrive from Aberdeen that day was at 12.20pm, giving fans barely enough time to scoot over to the stadium in time for kickoff.

It was also the second protest in a month for Celtic fans, who expressed their disapproval at a 6pm kickoff on a TUESDAY by tossing a dozen extra footballs onto the pitch right at kickoff for their April 12th game against Motherwell.

There will be many who will say: who cares. Television pays their money and makes their choice. But it could also be one factor contributing to a drastic fall in attendances across the Scottish Premier League this season.  Aberdeen’s crowds are down about 10% to 9,769 per game, leaving just four Scottish Premier League teams averaging above 10,000 for the season. League-wide, the average attendance is 13,783 for 2010-11, dipping from last season’s 13,915 and even worse, down from 15,537 in 2008-09.

Again, kick-off times are only one element of many challenges facing Scottish teams that aren’t named Rangers or Celtic. That said, what had once been a habit going back generations – going to games set on a predictable schedule – is now becoming a chore just to keep track of for fans.

That’s all great. But there are a few more numbers that might actually speak more to the likely future relative growth of the sport’s popularity here, at least on television.

The median ages for viewers of major sporting events on American television over the past year, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

World Cup: 37.7

NBA Finals: 40.7

Super Bowl: 43.0

Daytona 500: 44.9

Stanley Cup: 44.9

World Series: 49.9

U.S. Open golf: 57.8

According to Nielson, 49% of the 2010 World Cup television audience was between the ages 18 and 49. 57% was male, 43% female. I don’t have any demographic breakdowns for ethnicity, but in Spanish-language television, Univision’s broadcasts were up 50% in total ratings, with 8,821,358 tuning in for the 2010 World Cup final, and was particularly strong in the 18-34 age demographic (3,259,553 viewers for the final in that group, up 53% on 2006).

International soccer broadcasts are, then, right in the sweet spot for sponsorship, says the Sports Business Journal: “Brands can expect a better return on their sports marketing objectives if they target fans age 18-34, non-Caucasian fans, and/or households with kids.”

Either way, just a little more numerical proof that soccer has demographics on its side in North America.

Univision, who have the Spanish-language rights, might be even happier, though, having invested even more in the World Cup: they had an additional 4.5 million tune in for the US-Ghana game, but more notably, 9.4 million for Mexico’s loss to Argentina on Sunday — the highest-ever television audience for any Spanish-language programming in the United States. On ABC, meanwhile, a further 6 million tuned in for Mexico-Argentina, giving us a total of 15.4 million viewers for that game on both networks: the Mexican national team continues to grow as a massively valuable television property in the United States.

It’s worth noting Univision paid $325m for their package, while ESPN/ABC paid $100m for the same rights. ESPN, incidentally, is also getting very strong ratings in Hispanic households, up 29% from the 2006 World Cup.

The demographics will delight the networks and bode well for the growth of soccer in the United States, with the 18-34 age group extremely well represented amongst the viewing audience. Reportedly, the median age for World Cup television viewers is 39, while for the Olympic Games, it’s 52.

The total number of viewers for the U.S.-Ghana game, combining ABC and Univision, was 19.4 million: breaking the previous record for a soccer game on television in the United States, the 18.1 million for the 1994 World Cup final, and also becoming the most-watched American national team game, beating the 18 million who tuned in to see the United States against China in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final.

All this, of course, has both ESPN and Univision salivating for the 2014 World Cup, for which both already have the television rights as part of their current deals (along with the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany), especially as the tournament will take place in a much friendlier timezone for the United States.

It’s interesting to note, though, that each time the World Cup has been held in the Americas in the modern television-era, kick-off times have been arranged to primarily suit European television, even at the expense of forcing players out in the afternoon heat: in Mexico at the 1986 tournament, all games began at either 12pm Central Standard Time or 4pm CST. The final was at noon in the central United States, early evening in Europe. The 1970 World Cup in Mexico followed exactly the same timing.

The 1994 World Cup in the United States saw most games kicking off in the late morning or afternoon in Central Standard Time, with a few taking place later. The final kicked off at 2.30pm CST. The 1978 World Cup in Argentina was a little more friendly to local time, but still saw an afternoon kickoff.

It will be very interesting to see what times games take place at during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, though regardless, they are guaranteed to be more favourable for television viewing in America, with Rio de Janeiro only one hour ahead of New York City. And if Mexico ends up playing the United States in primetime at the World Cup — well, we’ll no longer have to have the interminable debate about whether soccer is popular in this country or not.

Sony’s 3D cameras filming Denmark vs. the Netherlands at the World Cup. 14 June, 2010.

Photo credit: DazMSmith on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

17.65 million viewers tuned in to the same game on English television, broadcast in primetime on ITV.

America, as you may well know, has many more people than England. But the next time the World Cup is broadcast live in primetime on American television, which should be in four years when it is hosted in Brazil, American television numbers will undoubtedly be substantially higher than any nation in Europe’s. According to Media Life Magazine, ratings on U.S. television are up 80% from the 2006 World Cup (of course, this is helped so far by both Mexico and the U.S. having played already). The rising trend will continue, and it will help if many games aren’t kicking off at 4.30am on the west coast.

Which I guess is one indication of the growth of the sport here and the demographics that justifies this piece in the New Republic:

The problem for England is that, in another couple of decades, the U.S. will have a reasonable soccer history of its own, and its population isn’t getting smaller, and its economy isn’t likely to, either. Advantage: USA. Ditto for other former soccer minnows, African and Asian sides included. The reality for the St. George’s Cross brigades is that, while England will remain in the second half of the first division of soccer nations, it’s going to have more company there down the road. Winning a World Cup is by no means a predictable venture, requiring as it does sustained player health, favorable elimination-round match-ups, and the occasional good bounce, errant red card or well-timed opponent meltdown. But the odds of little England winning a World Cup are only going to get longer as the quadrennials march on.

Yep, even Matt Drudge is paying attention now.

That’s up from last year, when it received a 1.0 share on ESPN, but the game should have benefited from a move to the FOX network and a shift to Saturday afternoon, American time.  The final rating will come in on Thursday, but it looks certain not to meet the expectations of the Fox hierarchy, as Fox Sports chairman David Hill said he hoped for a rating of 2.0 to 2.5.

Hill explained why:

“What we’ve discovered with Fox Soccer Channel this year and Fox Soccer Plus has been an incredible eye-opener about the way the audience just keeps building,” Hill said. “So it really became a kind of no-brainer for us to say this game deserves a place on the network.”

I don’t think Saturday’s rating will dampen that view, especially if the World Cup proves to be a ratings success on ABC/ESPN, but it’s worth noting the event didn’t achieve a massive audience by itself. How much that was down to the teams involved is open to question.

(By the way: this is the first of the new “Diary” entries, quick links & commentary on news of note – a feature of the new Pitch Invasion. Let me know if you find these posts worthwhile or not).

Big Story
“Today the stadium is a gigantic TV studio. The game is played for television so you can watch it at home. And television rules.” So wrote Eduardo Galeano in Soccer in Sun and Shadow.

That has long been the view of the football purist. Such a thought was echoed yesterday by the Guardian’s Jonathan Wilson, a purist if ever there was one, arguing that television’s focus on the moment is killing the game’s broader development, with elite players and teams increasingly falling to the demands of television for speed and flashy skill: “The focus on tricks is a trend only likely to be accentuated by programmes such as Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker, and the danger is that football produces a generation of posturing show ponies incapable of producing the incisive pass or making the right run.”

Wilson’s argument has an awful lot to it that needs unpacking, and seems a little confused in parts. Is it “harum-scarum running and clattering tackles . . .praised as representative of the seductive hurly-burly of the Premier League” that television demands?  Or is it “that players become focused on their showreels at the expense of the game itself, or that young players learn how to flick the ball over their heads rather than learning about the shape of the game”?  How exactly did they both develop out of the demands of the same medium?  Has this worked the same way the world over?

As Richard Whittall comments at a More Splendid Life, Wilson is onto something, it’s just not quite clear what; Whittall makes an alternate suggestion that “The panopticon of live global television has brought us McFootball” because “the frequency and availability of full-length match broadcasts from across the globe that has affected football tactics. You can easily see why; there are no surprises anymore, tactics have become homogenized, formations streamlined, because there isn’t any possibility of surprise when everyone can see everyone else, live on satellite.”

Either way, the impact of television on the development of soccer since the first attempt at a live outside broadcast was made in 1937 has been far greater than could be probably addressed in any piece as short as Wilson or Whittall’s, as it has weaved its way into every sinew of the game. Yet call me a romantic, but I think Galeano would concur: deep-down, even television cannot kill the ultimate unpredictability of football’s development. Upsets, beauty and tactical innovation are still broadcast to us and come in unexpected ways every year regardless of the box.

Let us return to Galeano’s introduction to Soccer in Sun and Shadow:

Play has become a spectacle, with few protaganists and many spectators, soccer for watching. . .The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.

Luckily, on the field you can still see, even if only once in a long while, some insolent rascal who sets aside the entire script and commits the blunder of dribbling past the entire opposing side, the referee and the crowd in the stands, all for the carnal delight of embracing the forbidden adventure of freedom

Worldwide News

• For a breather from the daily grind of following televised sport, the Global Game has an (as ever) thoughtful piece in football in Peru covering a competition you won’t have heard about: “A six-team fulbito tournament in Lima in December concluded a nationwide competition involving more than 40,000 indigenous Andean women, who don colorful skirts(polleras) and play on weekends as respite from hard labors at home and in the fields.”
• Back to England, and David Conn makes the obvious but telling observation on the financial divide in Manchester: “In simple terms, the lottery of English football clubs being companies up for sale on the open market has delivered a winning ticket to the Blues, not the Reds. Mansour has made an enormous financial investment in City, while the Glazers, since they bought United in their bitterly contested takeover, have given the club not one penny to spend. Quite the opposite.”
• Outside of Conn, Portsmouth’s perilous plight has meant many more journalists covering the financial madness of the Premier League. Paul Kelso (who to be fair has covered this angle in the past) looks at the debt mountain and comes to the conclusion that — the many jibes against Platini aside — UEFA’s moves towards some financial restraints might just make some sense “to protect clubs from themselves.”

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Of course, sadly, times have changed and Ray’s opportunities to wax about Riquelme have declined.

Nobody idolises Riquelme the way I do. I absolutely worship the ground he walks on, but Pellegrini has seen that cow milked for all of its goodness in Villarreal and the time has come to say goodbye.
Ray Hudson, 8:03 1st

Thankfully, Ray seems to have an endless treasure trove to dip into. Some can’t stand Ray’s pronounced Geordie bombast; and some can’t get enough of his mad ramblings. Increasingly, I fall into the latter category, and the blog explains why.

A tip of the hat to The Offside Rules for pointing me there.