Football On Television Today
- See also: Premier League media coverage
Coverage of Premier League now dominates football on English television, especially in financial terms; the contracts agreed between the league and broadcasters BSkyB in 1992 and 1997 were worth £191.5m and £670m respectively. Sky were also able to show more live games than previously, with several games live on many matchdays (originally Sundays and Mondays). However, the European Union objected to what it saw as a monopoly on television rights and demanded the 2007 contract be split into separate packages of 23 games; eventually Sky won four of the six available packages, with the other two were taken by Setanta Sports. Setanta went bankrupt in 2009 with its packages taken over by ESPN. From 2010/11, Sky have five packages and ESPN one. The top tier still has a presence on terrestrial television in highlights form on Match of the Day.
From the 2009/10 season, live coverage of the Football League returned to British terrestrial television for the first time since 2001 with the BBC securing 10 live Championship (second tier) games per season, as well as Football League highlights after Match of the Day. Sky also showed live lower league football while Setanta also showed large numbers of Conference National games before the channels demise.
There is also extensive coverage of numerous Cup competitions. Every match in the Champions League (formerly European Cup) is available either on ITV or Sky Sports while ITV is also the primary broadcaster of the FA Cup with two live games per round while Sky and the BBC show the League Cup. ITV4 and ESPN show the Europa League with even the Football League Trophy getting live television exposure on Sky Sports.
Read more about this topic: English Football On Television, History
Famous quotes containing the words football, television and/or today:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Not too many years ago, a child’s experience was limited by how far he or she could ride a bicycle or by the physical boundaries that parents set. Today ... the real boundaries of a child’s life are set more by the number of available cable channels and videotapes, by the simulated reality of videogames, by the number of megabytes of memory in the home computer. Now kids can go anywhere, as long as they stay inside the electronic bubble.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)