Yellow Player

[amershamwrighty]

The world is a different place when you configure your codecs properly. Any old fool knows that, Yorkie.

GY - I live near Hazlemere, High Wycombe. The clue is in the username.

(That wasn't meant to sound as cleverdickish as it looks on screen)

[Kernow Yellow]

Every contract should have a number of break clauses on both sides if the service standards are not being met. It sounds like in this case the service standards have not been met for quite sometime. Or has has been said they can decline to enter into such an agreement again.

Of course OUFC may have signed up to a contract which gives them non wriggle room and is indefinite. Given the agreeement put in place for the stadium this would not actually surprise me.

I also didn't accuse the club of ripping us off, my point is that they will keep people far more engaged with OUFC if they didn't force their fans to pay to listen to match commentary online, especially when you can't hear anything that is being said. On a Sat I can listen to 5live, watch soccer saturday or check the internet to keep up to date with how we're doing, I don't need to pay to listen, but if I did listen I believe I would feel the excitement of being a Oxford fan, regret not going that week and make it far more likely to attend a match in the future. This happenend in the Conference and we kept our gates high. Our gates have been shocking of late because I think once a fan stops going it's all too easy to lose interest in OUFC, anything that helps prevent that can only be a good thing.

There you go again Ty. Do you read anything that's been said? Or do you just choose to ignore it for the sake of your argument? The contract is between the Football League and Perform Group. OUFC have not signed a contract with anyone, there is no contract for OUFC to get out of.

[Kairdiff Exile]

I think you're wrong there, KY. My understanding is that the deals are entered into individually by clubs with Football League Interactive, and not as a collective. Individual clubs can - and do - operate outside of what the majority do if they so wish.

OUFC could quite easily do what Newport County did at the start of the season, and let another digital broadcaster transmit commentary of their matches. Newport allowed a local radio station to broadcast commentary online up until Christmas (when, sadly, they entered into a similar Football League Interactive deal to OUFC and chose to grab the short-term dollar rather than thinking longer-term about fan engagement as Ty is suggesting).

When Oxford's contract with FLI comes up to an end, there's no reason why they couldn't just let someone (ideally RadOx, but if not then Jack FM or someone else) broadcast the matches online for nowt. I don't know when that deal comes to an end, but I don't think it has that much longer to run on it. It'd be interesting to see what feelers the club puts out to gauge fan opinion on the issue when the time comes.

[ty cobb]

Oh KY you've got me I fully admit to not reading the post which sets out the contract between OUFC and the supplier of Internet commentary and why OUFC have no choice but to sign up to such company - very grateful if you could point me towards such post.

[Kernow Yellow]

KE - If that is the case then I am happy to stand corrected. I can't seem to find out by googling what the nature of any agreement is. I had always understood it was a FL-wide deal.

Are you sure you're not confusing the issues of website supply and digital rights? I recall that AFC Wimbledon retained their (shit) non-PG website for a while after promotion to the league, but I find it very unlikely that clubs can own the online broadcast rights to their own games in isolation. How would that work? What about away games? Surely PG would still own the online broadcast rights as it's a league game? That's why the broadcast restriction only affects FL games and not FA Cup games. The club or a third party could possibly buy them back for their own use. But I don't think the rights belong to OUFC to just give away or use for themselves.

Ty - why don't *you* find out the nature of the agreement before using it as a stick to beat OUFC with?

[ty cobb]

Because KY I'm not claiming to know anything about the contract, whereas you are despite not having any idea to what it says. If you're going to defend the fact that we have to pay for BBC commentary that never bloody works because of some soviet era style contract at least be sure of your position.

[Kernow Yellow]

The club could let Radio Oxford broadcast the game which is always in good quality.

I'm not claiming to know anything about the contract

Well which is it? My comments were only in response to your criticism of the club (and based on my understandings and assumptions about the contract - I'm very happy to be proved wrong on these). Whereas you seem happy to continually criticise the club for this while claiming complete ignorance of the agreement. Which isn't really fair, is it?

[slappy]

reg 74.4
74 Commercial Agreements

74.1 A 'commercial contract' shall include, but not be restricted to, any contract or agreement relating to television or broadcasting rights, the making of films or recordings of matches, the production of videos or any similar reproduction device, sponsorships, merchandising and advertising (including perimeter board advertising).

74.2 The Board is empowered on behalf of The League to enter into any commercial contract which is considered to be in the best interests of The League and the Clubs save that the Board is not empowered to enter into any contract or agreement relating to television rights or any other commercial contract which represents more than 25% of the projected income of The League over the period of the contract or agreement, unless such contract or agreement has been approved in principle by the Commercial Committee. Any contract agreement so entered into by The League shall be binding upon Clubs and Clubs shall not enter into commercial contracts which are at variance with commercial contracts entered into by The League. The Secretary shall inform Clubs of the relevant terms of all such commercial contracts entered into by The League.

74.3 In any event, each Club shall indemnify The League against any liability The League may incur in the event of a finding by a Court of Law or other body of competent jurisdiction that The League induced the Club to breach a contract with a third party as a result of requiring the Club to comply with this Regulation 74.

74.4 All commercial contracts relating to television, broadcasting and radio rights and Internet programming and title sponsorship of The Championship, shall be negotiated on behalf of The League by a Commercial Committee comprising the Chief Executive, three representatives of The Championship and one representative of Leagues 1 and 2. The committee may co-opt other members as appropriate.

74.5 Any commercial contract negotiated by the Commercial Committee shall be subject to formal approval of the Board.

74.6 The Commercial Committee may not conclude any proposed commercial contract which would alter the structure of the League Competition or cup competitions, compromise or abandon any League properties or which would conflict with The League's contractual and other relationships.

74.7 Where there is any conflict between a commercial contract entered into by a Club and one entered into by The League then the latter shall prevail and Clubs shall reflect this Regulation in any of their commercial contracts.

74.8 Where, however, a Club has registered a commercial contract with The League then The League shall pay compensation to the Club in the event of The League entering into a commercial contract which is at variance with the Club's registered commercial contract and where, as a result of the provisions of The League's commercial contract prevailing, the Club incurs a financial penalty or loss of income, provided always that the Club shall take all reasonable steps to mitigate any such penalty or loss.
-------------
So basically the league negotiates on behalf of all clubs. I imagine there is a period of grace for ex non-league teams to run down existing contracts and sign to the FLI templates for websites.

[Kernow Yellow]

If you're going to defend the fact that we have to pay for BBC commentary that never bloody works because of some soviet era style contract at least be sure of your position.

Well Slappy's post seems to support 'my position', as you put it. I actually missed this sentence in your post before and want to make it clear that I am not defending this agreement at all. I would of course prefer that I could listen to RadOx online and not be charged for it. I am just defending OUFC against your unfair criticisms.

[Myles Francis]

The following statement appeared on Brentford's website around 15 months ago:

We believe that the current Football League website model is not fit for purpose. The Club signed up to a contract with the Football League interactive, which manages and develops the internet and mobile rights of almost 90 clubs, around ten years ago. Football League interactive is responsible for providing the official club website, mobile services and the premium part of the website Bees Player.

Many clubs, including Brentford, were unhappy about the limitations of the previous website design and technology failures that were a regular occurrence. Football League interactive negotiated on behalf of the clubs to partner with a new provider in the belief there would be better service. Brentford Football Club were presented with a new website and given a few days to get it ready for launch.

We did select the website template from three available – the others are operated by, for example, Gillingham and AFC Wimbledon. We felt this was the best one to utilise the skills in the department and whilst it may not be as striking visually, we have a lot of news on the front page. We were not, however, shown many pages and in some regards had to make a decision blind. That decision was taken by me and I stand by it.

No-one from any Football League club was involved in the negotiations to select the new partner, we have asked to see tender documentation and the final contract but have not yet been given this by Football League interactive. We are also going through the contract that was signed ten years ago to see if Football League interactive is in breach with the defects we are suffering and whether we could, if we wanted, terminate that deal.

The Football League interactive deal was worth a six-figure sum to the Club in the 2011/12 season and if we leave we would have to replace that money in our budget as well as finding the additional funds for people to run the technology side of the site.

We are unhappy with the way the Club is currently represented on the website, it affects our image and we know it. We believe we could produce a better site ourselves but there would be repercussions with us having to fund the technology to provide match commentaries and videos that currently come as part of the package. Despite these challenges, the Club is actively speaking to potential technology partners. We are assessing whether we could afford to leave the FLi deal and set up on our own. The level of service from FLi has reached a point where tough decisions have to be made and we will take them if we have to.

One of the biggest frustrations is the lack of a mobile presence, i.e. on Blackberry, iPhone or Android. This is unacceptable and we have repeatedly told the Football League this. We were originally promised a mobile platform in September and the launch has been constantly pushed back. The latest date from FLi was to expect a mobile platform to be ready and launched on November 20. This is unacceptably late.

We have a constant battle to get news on our site – on Saturday between 2pm and 2.30pm we were unable to publish items. We had similar battles on Monday and have had publishing failures repeatedly over the past month. In September, an alteration carried out by our technology partner, with no prior notification, took out part of our website for weeks. Other items raised either by ourselves or other clubs include a desire to remove the button to ‘read more’ on most news pages and to change the layout of the fixtures page so Brentford’s score is always first. We see little movement on these and as it took around three weeks to change the main picture background on the website, we are not hopeful. These problems, and others like them, lead me to the conclusion that the system is not fit to support the number of clubs on the network.

Unless there are serious upgrades we will have no choice but to pull out. We are, unfortunately, in a situation that we are either in the deal, and take the current technological faults, or we pull out. We are not sitting idly and waiting for things to improve, we make minor improvements ourselves every week to try and make it easy to navigate but the main technological infrastructure is not in our control. And that is why we are left with no option but to explore possible alternatives.

Cutting through the points that the provided platform is a pile of poo, it seems that the Football League clubs do have the ability to pull out of the FLi deal. There are a couple of other stories online (including Bristol City and Southampton) where clubs have considered pulling out. However, it would appear that the deal is structured so that the clubs get a good income from the deal, whilst not having to bear the infrastructure costs. Going it alone is likely to see a rise in costs well in excess of the extra income which may be achieved by having a more bespoke service, and simply makes it commercially unviable to pull out of the FLi contract.

[joepoolman]

I know very little about this topic but I'm sure I have seen some Football League clubs' websites that don't follow one of the normal templates.
After a quick search I've found Accrington's and Leeds' websites which don't seem to look like everyone elses...

[Kernow Yellow]

Interesting stuff. I think there's some confusion between website provision and broadcast rights though. Obviously the issues with Yellow Player are bound up in both, but that doesn't mean that a club can 'opt out' of one just as easily as the other. Slappy's text seems to clearly indicate that broadcast rights are negotiated as a whole by the League. If a club had a non-FLi website, how would match commentary be provided? Presumably the rights holder would have to be compensated in some way.

I'm also unclear as to the relationship between Perform Group and Football League interactive. Are they one and the same entity?

[Myles Francis]

I'm also unclear as to the relationship between Perform Group and Football League interactive. Are they one and the same entity?

No. FLi have contracted Perform Group to provide the Player services. This is a good potted history of the relationships, shamelessly lifted from the minutes of a meeting of the Bristol City "fans parliament":

It began in 2001 with NTL, who splashed out cash aplenty to sign up 88 clubs across the Football League and non-league. NTL ran into money troubles a few years later and Premium TV took on the deal for the Football League. When Premium TV ran into money problems the League set up Football League interactive within their own company to takeover the payments to clubs, with the service and hosting provided by Premium TV, who became Perform Group. Perform Group lost the contract to host and provide the website service (less Player subscriptions) this summer [2012], replaced by Sapient Nitro after a tender process. The current FLi deal for 86 clubs (two bought out, Portsmouth and Manchester City) runs until 2017.

[ty cobb]

"us having to fund the technology to provide match commentaries"

From the very useful Brentford read out - wonder if this refers to the text commentary or the radio commentary, as Radio Oxford provide this I wouldn't have thought it would cost much to simply link into that.

I think the club have more wriggle room than perhaps you thought KY, however, if the money they get from the deal is substantial I would understand not worrying about the likes of me. However, given the match highlights are now free and you can't listen to the commentary half the time I do really question the value of yellow player - is there really enough there to be worth the money - most fans will live in Oxford so by charging for commentary I think you just frustrate those who live so far away they can't get to games - the BBC will already pay Oxford money for being able to commentate on the games, they are essentially looking to get paid twice for the same service as they don't provide their own commentary. To me it is a joke that I am expected to pay for something which costs are covered by the a licence fee which I already pay for - I am being expected to pay twice for the same service.

Perhaps the chairman of Oxvox can take this up with the club instead of spending time pissing off the former chairman.

[Hog]

I think people get too hung up on the licence fee thing as it's paid for a TV licence, not radio broadcasts http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-y ... _plt_check

In any case, before the internet I always paid my licence fee but as an exile couldn't tune into the Radio Oxford commentaries so you could argue I wasn't getting full value. Now I can pay what, 10.4 pence a day, and access commentaries on EVERY game (not just those involving OUFC but all other league teams) + ancillary preview and review videos and interviews etc and I think that's pretty good value*.

10.4 pence a day or an extra pint a month: you pays yer money and you makes yer choice!

*Assuming the b@stard thing is working of course!