PPV Tamed! Part 2

By: Todd Bontoft
Date: 23/10/2000

Fortunately, for the Premier League, the main live rights deal with BSkyB and the highlights agreement with ITV have both been completed. And yet, Premier League chiefs are insistent that their product has a value way beyond even the current fees being paid for exclusive rights.

Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive, insisted that, "We are still in possession of this very valuable asset for which we know there is immense interest".

But how will they find anyone else? BSkyB was excluded from the bidding under the rules of the auction to avoid any possible legal action based on restrictive practice. Telewest, the UK's second biggest cable company bid last time but the bid was rumoured to be considerably less that NTL's. Other possibles are ONdigital who have pay-per-view rights for Nationwide games and the technical geniuses Udirect.

I wish the Premier League bosses everything they wish the rest of us, and will shed no tear at their little difficulty. Let's not forget they resigned from the Football League to ensure they got their greedy mitts on the TV money. Throwing a few crumbs the way of the other divisions but with the second and third divisions particularly impoverished.

This has ensured the divide between the Premier League and the rest has become a chasm.

Ironic then that the Premier League clubs' chairmen, met on Friday to carve up their bounty, albeit a token £328M light. They are now starting to implode in on themselves as factions start to emerge. The top clubs, with the support of a misguided few that 'make up the league's number', have successfully voted through a motion that ensures the top six league finishers take a disproportionately high share of the loot. Meaning the difference in TV income alone between the top and the perennial strugglers could be as much as £19M a year.

One can only marvel at Derby County's intellectually challenged decision to vote in favour of this motion considering their precarious position. Are they going to finish sixth from bottom never mind sixth from top?

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

To all those in the 'top ' division that are so ably failing to assist the resurgence of the English national team and having turned their back on the other professional leagues many moons ago, they are now faced with a taste of their own medicine.

As the fallout from NTL's watershed decision, the first signs of the waning interest in football from overexposure and the top half a dozen Premiership clubs trying to cut the umbilical chord to the rest, there is a saying that springs to mind.

Those that live by the sword......

Todd Bontoft

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