![]() ![]() In the latest TV package, more than half of the Premier League’s 380 games are moved from the traditional Saturday afternoon slot for TV broadcast. Meanwhile people who don’t physically go to matches are still watching the 3pm Saturday games, but instead of doing so through legal means they are having to take to the murky backwaters of the internet in order to find very much illegal streams that may not be reliable but will at least give you a chance of seeing your team play.One of the biggest sources of complaints to the FSA’s public inbox is the total disregard the leagues and broadcasters have for match-going fans when scheduling games. The majority of football fans see the ruling regarding football on Saturdays as Draconian, with the match going fan confused as to how football clubs could possibly think that watching a game on the television would be a suitable replacement for the visceral experience of watching a game live and in person. Coincidentally, most German clubs have season tickets that cost less than going to see just one game costs at most Premier League grounds, but never let it be suggested that English clubs don’t want to drop the cost of their ticket prices in order to attract a crowd. There has not been an issue with attendances at Bundesliga games because of this. That notion is backed up by the situation in Germany where there are no such restrictions and pretty much every match of the Bundesliga is broadcast in its entirety. That games can be shown at 12.45pm and 5.15pm on a Saturday or pretty much any time the leagues and broadcasters like on a Friday, Sunday and Monday as well as midweek shows that the very notion of a blackout encouraging attendance is a nonsense. No legal ruling was ever put in place regarding the decision, but the footballing blackout was put in place and the Football Association, the Premier League and the Football League have continued to abide by it ever since. If you ever wonder why you’ve got to travel from Newcastle to Southampton for a 12.45pm kick-off at any point in the future then it all dates back to the moment that the other chairmen agreed with his idea. Not content with spoiling Kenneth Wolstenholme’s fun as the first presenter of the BBC’s flagship football programme, Lord gathered together the rest of the chairman from the Football League and persuaded them all to agree to his suggestion that football should not be televised between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. The ban remained in place for five years before people realised it was stupid. In fact, Lord was such a hater of the very idea of televised matches that he banned the BBC’s Match Of The Day cameras from Burnley’s ground, Turf Moor, when the programme first launched. Bob Lord, then the chairman of Burnley Football Club, believed that allowing the broadcast of football at its most popular time would be detrimental to attendances at live games, harming the clubs irreparably in the long run. The new device was feared by the powers that be in most forms of entertainment, from theatre managers through to cinema owners, and football chairmen were no exception. ![]() Despite its invention in its best-known form in the 1920s, the strange square device that sat in the corner of the room and beamed moving images into homes around the country was still in its infancy during the decade of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and free love. To understand why matches that are on between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on a Saturday afternoon aren’t allowed to be shown live on the television you have to understand the mentality of football in the 1960s. By modified by Amada44 original TV image under gnu license.
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