Live Fixtures on SKY & ESPN

What a stupid comment. Blame the Premier League and the very tough fixture list that was recently published.

Liverpool games will be shown a lot on TV because we are major box office.

The season that Newcastle were relegated they were among the most featured teams selected for TV fixtures in the Premier League and just look at how many times they feature in the TV list.

 

I missed the sarcasm

 

Very Interesting Blog

Analysis Of Sky and ESPN's TV picks

Sky and ESPN have announced their first batch of live TV games up to the end of November - during this period there will be 44 games on Sky and 10 on ESPN.

This season is the first of a new three year TV rights contract. Sky has now taken over one package previously held by ESPN (and before them Setanta). As a result Sky will have 115 live games this season with only 23 on ESPN.

ESPN now only has Package D which comprises eight 2nd picks and fifteen 4th picks - ie 23 games, of which a minimum of 18 will be at Saturday 5.30pm. Sky now has all the other packages.

These changes mean that the the new team appearance quotas are:

Sky - maximum 21, minimum 4
ESPN - maximum 5, minimum 1

In recent seasons, Sky has had a policy of showing every single 'big 4' head to head. So the first question to consider is how Sky will react to the first changes for many years in the football hierarchy with Tottenham replacing Liverpool in the Champions League and Man City now likely to be strong title contenders.

It's worth noting that Man City are now 3rd favourites for the title (just ahead of Arsenal), with Liverpool some way back as 5th favourites (but still well ahead of Tottenham).

The above odds may give a pointer to Sky's thinking. Up to the end of November Sky are showing every single 'big 5' head to head if we define the 'big 5' as the old 'big 4' + Man City. Sky are showing every single 'big 6' (ie 'big 5' + Tottenham) head to head with one exception - Man Utd v Tottenham which is on ESPN.

It should be noted that Sky did previously tend to show all the Manchester and North London derbies which represent some of the additional games making up the above expanded categories.

We'll have to see how this policy develops as the season progresses. However Liverpool have been the 2nd most popular TV team for as long as I can remember so I think we can fully expect them to retain their 'TV game status' even if they have another poor season.

The other aspects of Sky policy in previous seasons has been for the big teams to be shown a lot over the first couple of weeks of the season, to have a strong Christmas holiday schedule and then to show the vast majority of big games in the run-in (ie the last 6 or 7 games of the season).

This season Sky has a particularly strong opening with all six games on the first two weekends featuring 'big 6' teams and we can expect the policies regarding Christmas and the run-in to continue. However an important change is that the additional 23 games should allow Sky's schedules to be much more consistently strong throughout the season.

For example last season Sky showed 8 of Man Utd's last 9 games. After allowing for the opening weeks, Christmas, all 'big 4' head to heads and the two derbies Sky were only left with approx two 'non-automatic' picks with the result that the overall schedule throughout the season was extremely unbalanced (ie only approx two non 'big 4' head to heads or derbies from the start of September to the end of March, excluding Christmas).

Sky's additional package (with a maximum quota of 5) allows these gaps to be filled in. When looking at the schedule to the end of November it feels as if there are big games almost every single week with almost no quiet weeks. 31 of Sky's 44 games in this period feature a 'big 6' team.

With only 23 games ESPN now has very little room for manoeuvre. However ESPN appear to have decided to 'frontload' their schedule - they have games on all of the first three weekends and three of their first eight games feature Man Utd (leaving only two for the remainder of the season). This strategy makes sense as most people decide whether to subscribe around the start of the season so starting strongly is the best way of attracting subscriptions.

From the start of December ESPN will only have 13 games left to show from 23 rounds of matches - ie only just more than one game every two rounds. However their schedule as a whole will be balanced by the fact that they will have extensive FA Cup coverage in the second half of the season.

Summary of TV appearances up to the end of November:

(Sky + ESPN = Total)

Liverpool 8 + 2 = 10
Man Utd 7 + 3 = 10
Arsenal 8 + 1 = 9
Chelsea 7 + 2 = 9
Man City 7 + 1 = 8
Newcastle 6 + 2 = 8
Aston Villa 5 + 2 = 7
Everton 6 + 0 = 6
Tottenham 5 + 1 = 6
Stoke 4 + 1 = 5
Sunderland 4 + 1 = 5
West Ham 3 + 2 = 5
Bolton 3 + 1 = 4
Blackpool 3 + 0 = 3
West Brom 2 + 1 = 3
Birmingham 2 + 0 = 2
Blackburn 2 + 0 = 2
Fulham 2 + 0 = 2
Wigan 2 + 0 = 2
Wolves 2 + 0 = 2

So Sky will have shown every team at least twice by the end of November. Seven teams will not have been shown at all by ESPN by that time and the requirement for ESPN to show every team at least once further suggests a weaker ESPN schedule in the second half of the season.

Sundry other points to note:

1) Sky's Saturday games for the first three weeks of the season are on Sky Sports 2. On all three Saturdays Sky has England test cricket on Sky Sports 1. (On the Sundays the schedule reverses with the football on SS1 and the cricket on SS2). We will have to wait and see whether putting Saturday games on SS2 is a permanent move.

2) Sky can now show up to 11 games at Saturday 5.30pm although in practice the number is likely to be a bit lower. Sky has scheduled only two games in this slot up to the end of November. Sky is likely to make particular use of this slot in weekends before the Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals.

3) In order to provide consistency it may have been expected that ESPN would attempt to schedule all their games at Saturday 5.30pm. This has not proved to be the case (or was not possible). ESPN's 10 games up to the end of November comprise seven at Saturday 5.30pm, two at Sunday 1.30pm and one at Sunday midday (though this game could move).

4) This season sees the return of Monday night football to Sky (minimum 12 games). In recent seasons Monday night games on ESPN and Setanta have usually been fairly weak games for various scheduling reasons, particularly the Champions League. This season Sky starts MNF with two heavyweight encounters (Man Utd v Newcastle and Man City v Liverpool) but after that none of the games up to the end of November features a 'big 6' team.

5) As in previous seasons, Sky has done its best to avoid clashes with its own live coverage of the Ryder Cup. They have no games on the Saturday (2 October) and just one game (Chelsea v Arsenal) on the Sunday (3 October). Expect that game to be on Sky Sports 2.