La Liga/Spanish football 17/18

The story of the Irishman who helped save Barca during the civil war.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...arcelona-real-betis-campaign-film-recognition

 

Thanks Gyp. Sounds very inspiring. Well done to Fergus Dowd and his friends for getting this man's contribution acknowledged.

Can someone let me know when the download becomes available to buy please. I tried to sign up for notifications but instead of asking for an email address it's asking me to sign up to a mail server which I have no idea about.

 

Just read Sky lost the rights to La Liga to a company called Eleven Sports owned by the Leeds owner.

What was surprising is it cost Sky £18m a year which I think is quite cheap and can't understand why BT didn't bid for it considering it is the only league they don't have that would create total control of football fans interest.

Sky are still charging the same amount they did when they had the EPL, SPFL, UCL and La Liga. How can they make expect folk to pay for just the EPL and Dutch football?

A slight worry is how much La Liga is going to cost now. If it's £10 a month I would pay for it but I've got a feeling El Clasico will become a Box Office event charging £15 upwards per game.

A long term worry is BT sustainability because they are not receiving the forecasted subscriptions they expected. I just hope they make enough from the UCL adverts to get by because if Sky gain control of European football again it's going to be a nightmare for subscribers.

Good news is BT are expected to try to gain total control of the SPFL in 2020 which would be excellent not just from a financial point of view but an entertainment and punditry point of view, McCoist excepted

 

I see Villarreal acted more like a football club than Franco’s mob on Sunday.

 

Funny you talking about this and then reading the news today...the great Bubble burst about to materialise?

 

Because they still have 128 of 168 televised EPL games, simple as that. Their target audience isn't really La Liga fans - It's EPL and SPL (Basically us and the Huns) fans - British football is the target.

While they have their choice over games, the fans will keep subbing.

£18m p/y might not sound that much, but I would be shocked if losing La Liga lost them even 1/4 of that £18m in years yearly subs.

I was thinking there that I bet SKY are even better off not paying for La Liga and the £1.2b (3 year deal) UCL deal, so checked their figures since losing the UCL initially in 2013.


With the death of the chipped boxes and loss of UCL, their numbers have skyrocketed! Obviously it isn't all football related, but it's definitely contributing, especially when the UCL costs £400m a season to run it.

 

Hi Seosamh, I haven't been reading the news apart from a little bit about BT cutting 13,000 jobs and receiving ever increasing competition from even small independent cable providers. BT have been shockingly slow to provide fibre because of their monopoly on landlines.

That is incredible information ourdaywillcome, it seems like they have managed to keep subscription prices the same but reduce expenditure to just the EPL which as you say is their main bread and butter. I honestly thought the UCL was the main money maker for TV providers because of its mass appeal, every football fan watches it compared to other games.

The chipped boxes definitely made a huge difference to Sky as BT weren't really affected by them. Card Sharing never got near the levels of usage as the boxes due to the extra complexity and unreliable nature of servers.
I read Card Sharing is going to be over soon too as new boxes won't be relying on cards.

Mind you hackers always come up with something but the market for profit is vastly reduced now as folk prefer the stability of a subscription especially now 4K is kicking off and also the availability of streams that were never an option before.

Anyway, long live BT and other providers who can do it better and cheaper please. I mean BT's subscription is half of Sky's on Virgin Media yet they provide an overall better package for the sports fan.

 

Offt Barca 1 nil down.

 

There never was chipped boxes, it was cloned cards and card sharing was massive business after the cloning was brought too a stop. This is as ignorant as the press calling every android box a Kodi box.

 

Vermaelen injured yet again, might mean Boyata gets a chance in Russia.

 

2 nil and nae Messi.

 

Oh aye you're right, even though the NTL boxes had to have chips inside them altered so they could accept codes when updated it was the blank cards that were programmed using USB Phoenix boxes and similar stuff.

You could buy boxes up the Barras for £100 or something and they lasted years at first. Think that might be why NTL and Setanta went bust in the UK?

I didn't realise card sharing was as popular as it needs user input and boxes can't be bought already set up.

Is that totally finished now too? I know my V6 doesn't have a card but I imagine that card sharing will still be available until every single customer has their equipment updated to cardless boxes?

I set my desktop up to use Kodi but I found it very cumbersome to use and not very reliable. There are just too many channels and the decent ones you have to pay for I think. Streaming will be a major headache for providers though unless they manage to corrupt the net neutrality laws and prevent VPN use via their cable modems or something crazy like that.

Oh my * are Barca going to lose their unbeaten record in the last game of the season??? Why have they put out a B team away to Levante who are quite a decent team?

 

I wasn’t being nippy mate just it’s a lazy way of describing the way you are receiving a sub, I’ve been into rattling the providers since the old ITV Sport that was around 20 years ago. Since then it’s all went online since Nagravision stepped up their game for the providers. It’s like nowadays with Kodi and APK apps aslong as there’s an Internet and a third party then things will be pirated.

 

Oooft I think it's fair to say Coutinho is a Barca player now

 

2-1 Coutinho.

 

Ffs wish I'd done that Coutinho/over 2.5 bet now.

 

Sorry if my reply came across as aggressive, I didn't think you were being nippy, just thought you were providing clarity

Aye I remember Nagravision 3 I think, the city went into mourning

I think the only way that providers can make money is providing decent content at a fair price. The BBC seems to be very overpriced even though I used to think it should be kept independent I gradually realised it wasn't the bastion of unbiased reporting and opinion it boasted to be. I mean it's £5 per month more expensive than Netflix and I think I've watched it once in the last year. I do listen to BBC radio though but even that's started doing my * in as the sports pundits talk so much pish and a Radio 4 comedy is about as funny as an Eastenders Christmas Special.

4K will probably help providers as that'll be hard to stream (unless some kind of magic P2P software shares the data load) and if the quality is as good as they say then folk will pay the subscription to watch football if it's like being at the game.

Sky will probably set up 4K servers in Panama for UCL matches

Think I'll wait for 8K Hologram as I've only had HD for a few years and I'm quite happy with it. Can't believe we used to watch CRT screens and enjoy it just as much cause in hindsight Wimbledon was like watching Pong compared to HD.

 

Ffs Levante