Who would you rather broadcast Conference games 2009/10?

[slappy]

Who would you rather broadcast Conference games this season (09/10)?

[slappy]

This has been bothering me the last week, so thought I would ask what the rest of the Rageonline people think.

Last season, I saw it as more of a hinderance, having numerous away games moved. But now when I read it as every BSP club losing out on 70K to 100K , which is a significant amount in budgets, I'm not sure I want to get to the end of the season with teams going bust.

My choice is a chance for BBC to recover themselves, as their football coverage is woeful, a few FA Cup games and MOTD.

Especially when you read they paid £264M with Sky for 3 years of Carling Cup coverage and 10 Championship games.
http&#58//www&#46broadcastnow&#46co&#46 ... #46article

http&#58//news&#46bbc&#46co&#46uk/sport ... 105&#46stm
like this lot. OK show 10 championship games on BBC 1/2 , but I reckon a lot of people would like to watch BSP games too.

So a few days ago I wrote to the Director of Sport suggesting BSP on BBC3/4 or red button, as it would only cost say £5m per year for the rights, but no reply yet.

[Swissbloke]

Bravo, Virgin, ESPN..

Are all likely to have been asked too.

[boris]

I voted BBC because it would at least be an ad-free package, but to be honest I'm not that bothered provided that, like Setanta, I get it free with my Virgin TV package.

See, I care (but not too much).

[Brahma Bull]

I voted another pay package with ESPN or alike being my preference. I would be delighted if it were to appear on the BBC but think that they are not geared up to supporting Non-League Football.

The BBC have seemingly broken from tradition to show Championship games, although it appears to be NUFC TV. I doubt they have yet reached a stage to get in touch with lower league football when they have only started to screen 10 Championship games for the 09/10 season.

I am happy to pay for the coverage, I suspect the BBC would mess about more than a dedicated PPV company.

[GodalmingYellow]

BBC

[Andrewmaha]

I go for the BBC as well.

If a similar poll was conducted along the lines of &quotWho is likely to screen BSP in 2009 / 2010?&quot what would the result be?

Personally, I've not heard of any gossip regarding screening next year. Has anyone else?

[theox]

Whoever takes it on, I doubt very much that we will see the level of coverage that Setanta gave it. I'm pretty sure that in our first year in the Conference Sky showed a max of about eight games including the play-offs.

[Mally]

I'm not sure if anyone will bother to pick it up and if they do it will probably be for a rock bottom price that won't plug the Setanta gap.

[boris]

Personally, I've not heard of any gossip regarding screening next year. Has anyone else?

I heard a very dodgy rumour from a highly unreliable source that Dave TV were interested.

I've also heard that the Conference Board are in negotiations with a new broadcaster and an announcement is to be made this week, but again, I wouldn't necessarily trust this source.

[YF Dan]

The problem isn't so much the cost of the contract to buy the rights (my guess is that they won't be sold for a lot), but the sheer cost of producing a live broadcast...

It costs loads. Now commercial channels can recoup some/most of the money through adverts, sponsorship...but the BBC can't say &quotthis programme is brought to you with Blue Square&quot or whatever.

The only reason Conference matches are televised is for gamblers, blokes sitting at home with a laptop who will bet on anything. This is a fact. Th viewing figures alone do not justify it.

I have a friend who works for a large betting company...he tells me the money gambled on all televised matches is astonishing. That is why Setanta showed matches on nights when there was no clash with &quotbig&quot televised matches, hence thursdays and fridays.

I'm led to believe the BBC is going to go big with it's Football League coverage...not just the live matches but good online and red button highlights too. I can't see it doing Conference stuff, sorry.

[recordmeister]

Errrr.... we're in the non-league. Why are we even having this conversation? I think we've been amazingly lucky to have had any tv coverage at all over the last 4 years at all. Clearly, it doesn't pay to show Conf Football otherwise Setanta would have had more customers and not gone tits up!

I don't expect any one to pick up the rights to show live games. Pointless, really.

[Mally]

Errrr.... we're in the non-league. Why are we even having this conversation? I think we've been amazingly lucky to have had any tv coverage at all over the last 4 years at all. Clearly, it doesn't pay to show Conf Football otherwise Setanta would have had more customers and not gone tits up!

I don't expect any one to pick up the rights to show live games. Pointless, really.

Whilst I agree with you that its unlikely anyone else will pick up the rights its not fair or true to suggest Setanta went bust because of the Conference audience which was never anything more than a gap filler between Premier League, SPL, FA Cup and England Internationals.

[ty cobb]

From our point of view it would be good if the individual club websites were able to broadcast the matches. Say for a match by match fee of £10 clubs could show the match live.

This would save mucking about with fixtures - when they are published I want them to stay as they are, and would enable clubs whose fans fork out for the subscription to benefit from this money.

Quite selfish I know, but clubs make enough money on the back of our large away crowds.

In fact whats stopping us from refusing to have the rights to our games sold as a collective package - that would really piss Brian Lee off, in fact all the more reason to do it.

[Mally]

From our point of view it would be good if the individual club websites were able to broadcast the matches. Say for a match by match fee of £10 clubs could show the match live.

This would save mucking about with fixtures - when they are published I want them to stay as they are, and would enable clubs whose fans fork out for the subscription to benefit from this money.

Quite selfish I know, but clubs make enough money on the back of our large away crowds.

In fact whats stopping us from refusing to have the rights to our games sold as a collective package - that would really piss Brian Lee off, in fact all the more reason to do it.

Nice idea but a whole load of reasons why this wouldn't and couldn't happen. Firstly and most importantly I'm pretty sure that the conference regulations mean we are signed up to a collective broadcast rights deal. Secondly the biggest market for this would be away games and who's going to pay for them to be filmed, commentated, produced and broadcast? Thirdly we'd have to negotiate broadcast rights from each opponent.