The Sport Thread

Is that the one with the ludicrous suggestion that you should leave the bag in for five full minutes before adding milk?

Championship clubs led by Leeds and Derby threaten EFL breakaway in row over TV rights


"A majority of the Championship’s 24 clubs have written to the EFL threatening to form a breakaway league if the board signs a £590 million television deal with Sky Sports for the 2019-2024 seasons.


The EFL held an emergency meeting on Monday with all the Championship clubs, which broke up without resolution. The EFL has secured an extension to its provisional agreement with Sky until next week, but the contract must be signed by 4pm on Monday, with the broadcaster understood to be concerned by the stand-off"

From https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/championship-clubs-led-by-leeds-and-derby-threaten-efl-breakaway-in-row-over-tv-rights-zxw9tw2lc (Paywalled).

Could Eleven Sports (owned by the the owner of Leeds United) snatch the rights if the bidding process needs to be opened again? Or have the Football League learnt from the ITV Digital situation.

Closing montage from Sky Sports tennis coverage

I'll say it again. Due to the massive conflict of interest between the chairman of Leeds and the Chairman of Eleven Sports (the one and same)
If the TV contract goes back out to tender Eleven Sports should be totally excluded from bidding.

Either that or the other 90 clubs sign the deal, but let Leeds and the delusional Derby County go it alone, Sky can't show any EFL game home or away and just see when the billions they think they'll earn from streaming revenue actually turns up.

Why is that ludicrous?

Sky have extended the EFL deal - https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11688/11558301/sky-sports-extends-efl-contract-until-2024-broadcasting-138-live-games-per-season

and have also signed an exclusive deal for the Scottish Premiership replacing the previous shared deal with BT. I think it will be less games though as it was 30 each before now its 48 exclusive to Sky.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11558304/sky-sports-to-become-the-home-of-ladbrokes-premiership-from-2020

Scottish Football off BT Sport, then.
OK whilst not the greatest loss - it is yet another loss.
If this loss of content keeps going, it can't be too far off closing BT Sport 3 mostly to help to fill up BT Sport 1/2/ESPN?

By the way, great news the deal for the Championship has been signed.
And a nice poke in the eye for the money grubbing Leeds and Derby County Chairmen.

Do the lower Scottish divisions get any coverage now Rangers have returned to the Premiership?

They will in the Scottish Championship on BBC Scotland (the new channel) from this season - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46264663

Dont forget the as live repeat games on BBC Alba..

The replies to this tweet speak volumes.

SPFL@SkySports will be the only place to see live Scottish Premiership action from 2020, after agreeing a new 5-year deal with the SPFL.

Up to 48 live Ladbrokes Premiership matches as well as the nail-biting Premiership/Championship Play-offs.

Read: https://t.co/U3Ky5Mci5e pic.twitter.com/rcja20q60y

— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) November 19, 2018

Interesting approach compared with when European Rugby ditched the shared Sky/BT deal to go with BT alone... 12 less games overall. Obviously with European rugby, Sky & BT tended to show the odd Challenge Cup game although admittedly only where the schedules allowed. Now I don't think BT are bothering at all.

Yet here - outright drop of 12 games. Football isn't my bag so just an observation really.

On a different note, I wasn't massively impressed with Channel 4's coverage of Ireland v All Blacks on Saturday. The commentators were complete monotone rubbish, the program dumping to adverts immediately after the haka.. and I wasn't entirely unconvinced there wasn't a bit of pixellation during some fast panning movements.

As a "week-in-week-out" rugby fan, I wouldn't be entirely upset to see these games given back to a pay broadcaster if it meant an end to Channel 4 covering it. It's a tough call between having them free-to-air and the coverage being rubbish as a result.