I imagine our season tickets will be used as TV passes for home games. I hope they can invent some simple method for the away games.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52903945
The principle is there but plenty questions to follow, not least what clubs currently do with their own TV channels and away games. Bickering will follow.
I imagine our season tickets will be used as TV passes for home games. I hope they can invent some simple method for the away games.
MotherwellTV already have access to plenty away games, presumably there you could just lift the geoblock?
But it depends on who gets the cash. MFCTV costs a tenner a month and works out at a few quid per away game from a - I imagine - relatively small number of exiles. So no one really cared.
Will Motherwell get to keep doing that or will that price be set by the home side? Or will they have different prices for Scottish based fans as it is instead of a match ticket? But if it's too expensive, people will just use the foreign service with a VPN.
Obviously - as with everything in Scottish football - it comes down to the Old Firm. If we can sell 10,000 'away tickets' per game to the OF at a tenner a head, that's 300 grand if this lasts the whole season. Crucial to us and clubs our size. Alternatively if the OF were keeping that money, they would surely sell plenty to their own fans and times 19 away games it adds up to millions.
When all is better, do you then keep this service for those won't/can't get to games because it's established as an alternative revenue stream to real life tickets? And if you've established the principle the away side keeps the cash from their 'virtual' fans, will the OF then fight for that again with real life tickets in future?
It'll get very messy. And I imagine the boardrooms at Tannadice, Pittodrie and Easter Road will be doing some frantic calculations and projections in the coming days to see what side of the fence they land on.
The Sky statement seems to make it clear the streaming is available to "season ticket holders to watch all home games". So maybe no need for debate after all, other than whether those of us abroad can still watch away games as before.
There are several strands of questioning here:
HOME GAMES
1. Motherwell TV: If we have a season ticket, the game is behind closed doors, and this is not one of Sky's 48 games, do we get to watch this game through Motherwell TV for no cost other than the season ticket already paid for?
2. Sky TV: If we have a season ticket, the game is behind closed doors, and this is one of Sky's 48 games, do we need a Sky TV package to watch this game as Sky would no doubt ban the club from broadcasting this through Motherwell TV to UK viewers? If yes, we would be paying twice for the same thing and, therefore, my Well season ticket alone would not let me watch all Well games that are behind closed doors.
AWAY GAMES
3. If the game is behind closed doors and on Rangers TV (for example), instead of visiting Ibrox, will Rangers (for example) allow Away fans to buy a single game ticket to watch online?
4. If the game is behind closed doors and this is one of Sky TV's 48 games, I imagine the only way Away fans could watch this game would be as normal through a Sky TV subscription. If so, this is discriminatory, as it means that when an Away game is behind closed doors and on Sky, the only way an Away fan can watch it is to purchase a Sky subscription, or will they do single game packages?
Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong on any of my assumptions as I may not have read everything released on this clear-as-mud scenario.
Can anyone answer these questions?
Good questions. I think your clear-as-mud phrase sums it up. In fairness, the news of virtual spectators arrived this morning so we can give the powers at be some time to figure out the detail.
Overseas we’ve been able to view all games home and away with a MotherwellTV season ticket — except for the few games away from home where the opposition only allows audio.
This has been regardless of any games live on TV, although that might explain why they commentary is sometimes provided with bias favoring the opposition.
FFS and OMG - C19 - SPFL - VPN - MFCTV - SKY - BT ... is there no end to this 'debate by initials' ?