Sky win four of six Premier League packages from 2010-2013

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7868759.stm

Sky have won 4 packages so far of the next round of bidding rights, with the other packages going to a second round of bids.

Details of prices or which packages have yet to be announced, and won't be until all 6 packages have been awarded, but it is likely Sky have won the rights to the packages they already hold. Sky can win one more package under EU legislation.

There is the possibility that live rights could become even more fragmented with ESPN rumoured to be interested in bidding.

Personally, I don't think Sky will win, or even go for any more packages. One package isn't enough for a PPV package, which by all accounts lost Sky money, and an extra package on the subscription channels doesn't make financial sense, as the outlay will not be recouped in extra subscriptions. Unless of course, Sky try to win another package in an attempt to run Setanta out of business.

All very interesting, especially to see how much has been paid. This could be the first time the cost of rights has not risen significantly since the last round of bidding - the BBC have held highlights rights for the same price as last time (effectively cheaper given inflation), plus MOTD2 will now be on the iplayer the Tuesday after broadcast (presumably so other outlets retain some kind of exclusivity for a period of time).

Catching up

A busy weekend of football just past; Saturday was the fantastic clash between Arsenal and Man United, which is by far the best "Big Four" clash I can remember in recent years, as both teams properly went at each other for 90 minutes as the match ebbed one way and another. In the end, the result was probably fair as Arsenal made the most of their chances, and United squandered most of theirs (both sides were woeful in front of goal for much part), in a match that shows why Chelsea are probably favourites for the league this season as they cruised to a victory over Blackburn on Sunday. If Arsenal were to play with this much fire week in, week out, they'd mount a serious challenge; one feels another Stoke or Hull is only round the corner for them.

Morecambe got through to a home tie in the next round of the FA Cup with a 2-1 win over Grimsby, in a match which they dominated from start to finish despite having plenty of players out injured. The cynic in me says Grimsby were as awful as Morecambe were good, but since our change in formation, we've lost against Port Vale with a last minute goal, drew with Accrington and then won against Aldershot and Grimsby (ignoring a defeat in the JPT), and things look rosier. Keep playing like this and we'll even begin to trouble mid-table, which is preferable to looking over our shoulder and watching the teams with points deductions catch us.

On Sunday, I watched Inter against Udinese whilst trying to not fall asleep. One of those matches that gives Serie A a bad name, but not for boring defensive play, just plain ineptitude as passes were misplaced and shots sailed over the bar. Each were as bad as each other, and Inter bundled on in at the end to steal the points and to stop Mourinho getting a pasting in the papers. Over to Germany for Schalke vs Bayern which started like Arsenal vs Man United, before petering out in the second half as Bayern held on to a 2-1 lead, inspired by Franck Ribery. The Bundesliga appears to be the place for goals this season, with high scoring matches abounding. I still haven't managed to catch Hoffenhiem yet as their matches don't seem to coincide with what gets shown live, but hoping to see them soon.

Weekend Review - Part 2

Onto the Saturday tea-time fixture, via Morecambe drawing (surprise of surprises) against Rochdale at Christie Park. Again, we started slowly, again we conceded a sloppy goal and then decided we would make a fist of it after half-time.

Back home, to watch Manchester United take on West Brom at Old Trafford. West Brom put plenty in midfield to try and stifle Man Utd, and for a period it worked, although Halsey penalised Rooney for a “push” in the area after he put one in the next after about 25 minutes, then failed to penalise a West Brom defender for a similar light touch in the penalty area. So 0-0 at the break, as it does so often, turned into 4-0 at full time as Rooney managed to top his disallowed goal with an even better opener, before Ronaldo, Berbatov and Nani also got on the score sheet, taking the number of goals scored by the “Big Four” on Saturday to 15. One sided league?

On Sunday, I watched my first Serie A match of the season, as Lazio travelled to newly-promoted to Bologna. I chose this mainly because anytime Serie A is mentioned on the Guardian Podcast, their attractive play this season is always commented upon. However, this time it was Bolgona who impressed with two earlier goals as a result of non-existant marking at set pieces, before a well taken solo goal by the much travelled Marco di Viao made it 3-0 at the break. Lazio got one back in the second half, but never looked like getting anything like a draw. Perhaps it’s just me, but a number of continental sides seem to accept defeat and not try to recover once they go a couple of goals down, to try and conserve energy for matches when they might have a chance. The match finished to the sound of helicopters, perhaps braced for potential trouble from the notorious Lazio fans after the defeat, and the ban placed on them travelling to away matches by their own club.

In fairly unrelated news, it would appear Digitalb endeared themselves further to subscribers by not showing Hull City’s match against West Ham on Sunday afternoon, which had been advertised and on their EPG, preferring to show adverts and then the Milan channel in it’s place. If they do target UK subscriptions (personally I think they don’t), from comments on the Alsat forum, they will be missing quite a few next season.

Manchester City vs Liverpool

Sunday’s live match was Robinho’s Manchester City vs Liverpool. I watched this on digitalb, but somebody forgot to flick the commentary, and the English audio stream was silent for the whole match. I watched about 20 minutes like this (it’s very weird watching a match with no sound at all) before switching over to the Albanian audio so I at least had the crowd noise. Probably makes more sense than the English commentary, and is an improvement on Andy Gray at least.

It was a pretty exciting match, with Liverpool going 2-0 down to City before the break, before a Fernando Torres double and Dirk Kuyt winning the match in injury time. At half time, I couldn’t see Liverpool coming back into it at all, but they played very well in the second half, much as it hurts me to say.

The match could go down as one of those feted “this is why the Premier League is so great” matches, and in truth, it was pretty enjoyable, even if I got the result I didn’t want. Sally was pleased though, as Torres is in her fantasy team.

The match saw a red card for a pretty reckless tackle by Zabaleta on Alonso, which was well deserves. Martin Skertel was stretchered off late in the match after a challenge on Ched Evans left him writhing in agony on the pitch, although he was potentially lucky still to be on the pitch at that stage following a high tackle on Jo.

I half-wonder if the match was more enjoyable due to the absence of English commentary, allowing me to watch the match and make up my own mind about what’s going on, rather than listen to some gormless summariser who says the referee has made a mistake, then over the course of several replays gradually changes their tune to say that the referee has made a good decision.

Liverpool for once seem to have credible title credentials, although the depth of their squad could be an issue, especially if Torres gets injured. For all Manchester City’s riches, it’s worth noting that they’re only really a Robinho and a Jo better than last year’s mid-table team. It’s worth waiting until after the next transfer window to see if they’re worthy of the Big Four contender title – on recent showings, they are some way off, but are showing signs.

Saturday review; Morecambe draw (again!) with Chesterfield; United cruise at Blackburn

At a sodden Christie Park Morecambe picked up another draw against Chesterfield. In a match were the rain never much dipped below torrential levels, Steward Drummond opened the scoring with a well placed shot from outside the area. The lead, nice though it was to take the lead for once, didn't last for long as Chesterfield equalised shortly afterwards with a header unmarked in the penalty area, before Bentley brought down Jack Lester in the area to give Chestefield a penalty, which was driven home.

The match was a scrappy affair, due to the driving wind and the rain - passes along the ground went astray due to soggy conditions, and anything above head height was caught by the wind. Morecambe played some nice football, but as much nasty football with plenty of stray passes and wasted possession. McIllroy through on Wainright and Curtis to try and turn the tide in our favour in the second half, and it seemed to work as more and more chances were created. Young Aaron Taylor made his first team debut after impressing in the reserves, and it was his influence that unsettled the Chesterfield goalie right at the death, causing him to spill the ball and allow Rene Howe to knock the ball into an empty net from about one yard out.

In the tea time telly game, Man Utd eased to victory at Ewood Park with goals from Wes Brown and Rooney. Wes' goal possibly would have been given as a foul by other referees, as Vidic clattered the goalkeeper, but it's one of those ones that seems to divide opinion (personally I think it was fine), but makes a mockery of repeated suggestions that video replays would make referee's decisions more accurate. United commanded the match, and were profligate in front of goal once more, and easily could have got three or four in this match. All of which leaves them three points off the top of the league - not bad for the "slow start" the papers would have you believe they are having.

Digitalb Schedule Weekend 4-5 October

NB All times CET - deduct 1 hour for UK

Sat 4
Australian Moto GP 05:10 SS5
Birmingham-QPR 13:45 SS5
Besa-Elbasani 15:00 SS3
Dinamo-Vllaznia 15:00 SS4
Stuttgart-Werder 15:30 SS1
M’gladbach-Köln 15:30 SS2
Lazio vs Lecce 18:00 SS2
Coventry-Southampton 18:20 SS3
Blackburn-Man Utd 18:30 SS1
Marseille-Caen 19:00 SS4
Villareal-Betis 20:00 SS2
Australian Moto GP 20:00 SS3
Inter vs Bologna 20:30 SS1
Lille-Valencienes 21:00 SS4
Palmeiras-Atlético 21:00 SS5
Barcelona-At Madrid 22:00 SS2

SUN 5
Australian Moto GP 04:00 SS5
Juventus vs Palermo 15:00 SS1
Genoa vs Napoli 15:00 SS2
Siena-Roma 15:00 SS2
Chelsea-Aston Villa 16:00 SS4
Man City-Liverpool 16:00 SS5
Everton-Newcastle 17:00 SS1
Schalke 04-Wolfsburg 17:00 SS2
Sevilla-Athletic 17:00 SS3
Vlladolid-Valencia 19:00 SS2
Australian Moto GP 20:00 SS5
Cagliari vs Milan 20:30 SS1
Sporting- Porto 20:45 SS3
Real Madrid-Espanyol 21:00 SS2
Nancy-Paris SG 21:00 SS4

Mon 6
Leixões-Benfica 22:00 SS5

Sunday review; Wigan vs Manchester City

On Sunday, I watched Robinho’s Manchester City visit the JJB, and come away with no points after an impressive display by Wigan.

Wigan look like a team that will cause a lot of teams problems – having watched them against Chelsea, when they shut Chelsea down after going behind to a free kick, this time they worked hard but were more attacking. Zaki looks like a fantastic player, honest and hard working, and is fast becoming one of my favourite players in the Premier League for his attitude. Unfortunately, his form is likely to become Wigan’s loss as he is only on loan, and if he keeps up performing like this, he is likely to be plying his trade at a “bigger” club next season.

Wigan were strong and athletic, always harrying Man City and giving the likes of Wright-Phillips and Robinho little time on the ball to carve out chances. Wigan took the lead with a pile-driver from Valencia, one of those goals that demands a reaction from those watching. They didn’t hold on to it for long, conceding a soft goal from a corner as the ball rebounded off Kompany and into the net.

Wigan restored their deserved lead in an undeserved fashion, getting a soft penalty for an apparent dive by Palacios, which was despatched by the impressive Zaki. Wigan sat back in the second half and were content to close down Man City, who were unable to break a stubborn Wigan side down. Wigan look like a solid mid-table team, who are stuck between a rock and a hard place – they look to strong this year to be sucked into the relegation mire, and not quite good enough to challenge for a European spot. Outside chance for the League Cup perhaps? One thing is for sure, no team is going to look forward to playing them, they aren’t the push-over for the bigger sides they have been in the previous two seasons.

Saturday review; Liverpool win on Merseyside, Man Utd beat Bolton, Hull humble Gunners

Busy Premier League day yesterday. Liverpool won at Everton thanks to two second-half Fernando Torres goals, which was what their dominance of play deserved. I think I recall a comment from the commentators on the end that Everton hadn't made a shot on target all match, and I can easily believe that, as they had little possession and mainly squandered what they had. Looks like it could be a long season for the Toffees, it's difficult to see where their goals will come from. Mike Riley took the spotlight again, making many stoppages for free kicks (although in the criticism he took from the commentators, what can he do if both teams persistently foul? The more he lets play "flow", the more chance he misses a foul, earning thr wrath of the players and commentators for not blowing - who'd be a referee?), though he most puzzling decision of the day was sending Cahill off for a poor challenge when a yellow may have sufficed, although Cahill's reluctance to come over and speak to the ref may have led to his own downfall.

I then watched Man Utd vs Bolton on an internet stream, as digitalb unsurprisingly didn't broadcast this match live. At the same time I was listening to Morecambe earn a draw at Lincoln on Morecambe World, the commentary for which sounded like it was coming down a piece of string connected to a tin at Sincill Bank. Any time the crowd made any kind of noise, they and the commentators merged into one big blob of sound. When Morecambe equalised, it took almost 30 seconds for me to figure out what had happened! Anyway, in the other match, watched on various streams on justin.tv as various streams buffered and went down, Man Utd dominated the Trotters, without going ahead until deep in the second half when Ronaldo was brought down in the box - although it was never a penalty. The reaction on the internet chat rooms at the time was telling - blaming Ronaldo and calling him all the names under the sun, when none of it was actually his fault - it was a fair tackle, which brought him down after the ball had been won; Ronaldo didn't dive, didn't appeal for the penalty, but yet in the eyes of most of those in the chatroom at the time, it was his fault. Anyway, Rooney came off the bench to get a second to take the focus off the dodgy decision slightly.

In the tea-time match, featuring Arsenal yet again (I think the last three Setanta tea-time matches have featured the Gunners), Hull held up well against Arsenal in the first half, living on the edge slightly in defense on occasion, but making several chances of their own. As Arsenal scored at the start of the second half, and Sally had just put my tea out, I turned the telly off, and turned on again a few minutes before the end to see what cricket score Arsenal had run up, only to see Hull had taken the lead! I was glad not be be betting, as I certainly would have used Arsenal in a few accumulators yesterday. So I watched the highlights on match of the day, and saw Hull were worthy of their win - Arsenal again trying to elaborate too much in front of goal, passing when they should shoot, and Geovanni equalised with a fantastic rocket from outside the area, before Cousin got the winner from a corner.

All of which leaves Chelsea and Liverpool tied at the top of the Premier League.

Digitalb Premier League Schedule - 20th/21st September

Saturday 20th
12.45pm SUNDERLAND v MIDDLESBROUGH (SS2)
17.30pm BOLTON W. v ARSENAL (SS1)

Sunday 21st
12.00pm WBA v ASTON VILLA (SS1)
14.00pm CHELSEA v MAN UNITED (SS1)
15.00pm PORTSMOUTH v MAN CITY (SS5)

Liverpool vs Manchester United, via a dodgy web stream

As I was at a wedding back home in Northern Ireland, my only football this weekend was watching the first half of Liverpool vs Manchester United on streaming site Justin.tv.

Justin.tv is a streaming site where users connect their telly up to their computer, and broadcast whatever they are watching. Originally set up to allow people to broadcast video gaming, it seems to have grown into a legally dubious way of re-broadcasting various satellite channels. Go there on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and you’ll find most matches being broadcast. I ended up watching someone broadcasting Sky Sports over the service, along with around 23,000 other viewers. Given that several other users were broadcasting the match, it soon adds up to quite a few people not being included in Sky’s overall viewing figures.

Quality varies from user to user – some are blocky and jerky, some are very reasonable quality. It’s all done using embedded flash, like youtube and other video sharing sites, meaning you don’t need to download any clients like TVUplayer or SOPcast.

The channel is broadcast in a window about a quarter the size of your computer screen, with a chat window on the other side. The chat window is annoying, there’s no two ways about it, and unfortunately there’s no way of hiding it. Whilst it’s a nice idea, to let people discuss the match in progress, in reality most people use it for fairly basic insults of the team they don’t support, to make various sexist, racist or homophobic insults, or to ask who scored the goal. Every minute.

The match itself (as much as I watched of it) was a pretty exciting, fairly open contest. United look like they could run a cricket score to begin with, before gifting Liverpool an equaliser and falling apart from there. Not having seen the second half, I can’t comment on Liverpool’s winner, but it would be interesting to see how Liverpool would have performed had they not giftwrapped the equaliser.

I did catch the last 10 minutes of Real Madrid vs Numancia last night, seemingly the only part of the game not to contain any goals, but thankfully they won, and was the final result in a small accumulator I had, returning the princely sum of 2p for my stake of 1p. I’d been on a bad run until then, loosing 6 on the bounce. I’ve done a small accumulator for the Champion’s League, based on some of the home “bankers” there look to be. Fingers crossed my luck is changing!

Digitalb Schedule, 12-15 September

England
Saturday
12:45 SS1 Liverpool - Manchester Utd
17:20 SS2 Derby County - Sheffield Utd
17:30 SS1 Manchester City - Chelsea

Sunday
13:30 SS5 Stoke City - Everton

Monday
20:00 SS5 Tottenham - Aston Villa

Italy
Serie A
Saturday
17:00 SS3 Palermo - Roma
19:30 SS1 Inter - Catania

Sunday
14:00 SS1 Genoa - Milan
14:00 SS2 Lazio - Sampdoria
14:00 SS3 Bologna - Atalanta
14:00 SS4 Napoli - Fiorentina
19:30 SS1 Juventus - Udinese

Spain

Saturday
19:00 SS3 Racing - Barcelona
21:00 SS2 Sevilla - Sporting

Sunday
16:00 SS2 Villarreal - La Coruna
18:00 SS4 Real Madrid - Numancia
20:00 SS2 Almeria - Valencia

Germany
Friday
19:30 SS1 Frankfurt - Karlsruher SC

Saturday
14:30 SS2 Koln - Bayern
14:30 SS3 Dormtund - Schalke

Sunday
16:00 SS3 Hannover - Monchengladbach

France
Saturday
18:00 SS4 Lyon - Nice
20:00 SS4 Bordeaux - Marseille

Sunday
20:00 SS3 PSG - Nantes

Brazil
Saturday
22:20 SS1 Gremio - Goias

Sunday
20:00 SS4 Cruzeiro - Palmeiras

Greek Nova affected by 3pm blackout too

Several reports on internet forums have reported that Greek broadcaster Nova appears to be in the same situation as Digitalb, and currently blocked from showing 3pm Premier League football on Saturday afternoons.

The situation was less clear for Nova, as they had relinquished some of their capacity to state broadcaster ERT during the Olympics for increased coverage. Now things have gone back to normal, it would appear they are also suffering for perhaps allowing their cards to find their way into the hands of UK publicans a little to easily.

What is still unclear is why the Premier League appear to have targeted these specific two broadcasters over others, such as Canal Nordic, which is fairly easily receivable in the UK, or some of the other broadcasters whose packages are currently easy for pirates to hack.

According to posts on the Alsat forum, Digitalb repeated last week's trick of joining the Wigan vs Chelsea match late by not broadcasting the first 15 minutes or so of yesterday evenings Arsenal vs Newcastle whitewash.