Ukraine Versus England Internet and Cinema Only — Good or Bad?
The Future of Live Football
If you want to watch England in this Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine you have three choices — travel to Dnipropetrovsk or watch it live on the internet or at a cinema.
Setanta would have been showing the match on TV if the company had not ceased trading in June 2009. A press release from digital media company Perform explains how they became involved in the deal.
“The international football agency Kentaro, acquired the broadcast rights from the Ukrainian FA and had sold the game to Setanta in December 2007. However the pay-TV broadcaster went into administration over the summer leaving this key match without a UK broadcaster.
With no offers on the table from UK free to air or pay-TV broadcasters Kentaro decided to seek the widest possible online audience, appointing digital sport specialist Perform, to market and stream the match online, on a pay-per-view basis.”
Being able to watch live sport online is not new concept, however this historic, yet contentious broadcast, is the first time that an England match has been broadcast exclusively on the internet and probably the first time there has been live football in cinemas too.
Watching The Match Online
“Over 20 Million people in the UK regularly use the internet to watch sport.”
Philipp Grothe, CEO of the Kentaro Group
Not everyone has a computer, not everyone has broadband and even if these two prerequisites are met the inconvenience and quality will have put people off watching the game.
Watching any form of live streaming online has its limitations; whether it be computer processing power, broadband speed or screen size. While the limitations and cost may be a contributing factor to the anger that has arisen since the announcement of the ‘internet only’ fixture it seems to be just the fact that the match is not on the telly that has enraged.
A poll on the BBC website asked, “will you pay to watch England’s game against Ukraine online?” Over 16,000 people voted an a huge 97% said ‘NO’.
I think the Beeb asked the wrong question. They should omitted ‘pay to’ and then followed it up with a second poll for those that said ‘NO’ which asked why they would not watch the match online. I’m sure that the cost would not be the main reason for all 97% naysayers were choosing not watch online and that a majority would have chosen their principles over their pride for English football, as if television broadcasters owe them the right to see England’s far flung fixtures.
Alternatively there will be a lot of people that simply would not have watched the match anyway, even if it were on television. England have already qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and a match against Ukraine, to some at least, may not be such an attractive fixture to sit down and watch for a couple of hours.
However, if you do want to see England play the main inconvenience is having to watch the match on a computer screen which tend to be relatively small when compared to our televsions — unless you have a 30″ monitor. However, you might be able to hook your computer up to your television, obviously more practical if you have laptop but finding an appropriate cable will add to the cost of watching the game.
The expectation of watching something online is that it will be low quality — jittery and pixelated picture with low–fi sound. Who wants to pay for a low quality broadcast? Such expectations may have been formed after seeing video on websites such as YouTube where a lot of the user generated video is of a low quality. The reality will differ from household to household — depending on your computer and the actual speed of the broadband connection being used. (Dial up users need not apply.) Nonetheless, the quality will be compared to that of television and such live streams, for the near future at least, will be of a lesser quality.
The football match is being provided at three different bitrates, the higher the bitrate the higher the quality. In theory anyone who has broadband will be able to view the highest quality video stream but will demand cripple supply? That is unlikely as Perform are used to serving live sport to the masses, although this match has the potential to give them their biggest audience ever.
Some countries will be prohibited from viewing the match online (as is the norm with any broadcasting rights). This particular broadcast does have one ironic prohibition as one of the countries not able to view the live stream is Ukraine.
If you do decide to sign up to watch the match online today (Wednesday) is the last day you can purchase a ‘pass’ to watch the match online for £4.99. Tomorrow the price increases to £9.99 and if you wait until Saturday the cost rises to £11.99. Alternatively you can get the match for ‘free’ if you decide to sign up with bet365 and put some funds into your account. (If you’re already a member of bet365 you should be able to watch the game.)
Football and Popcorn
Watching a football match in a cinema is a new concept and sounds like it could be fun too. There is the potential of having the joy of a crowd atmosphere — chanting and singing perhaps? Sadly it seems that only a few cinemas will be showing the match so few that I am willing to list them here!
Odeon cinemas showing Ukraine vs. England: Basingstoke, Bath, Birmingham, Blackpool, Derby, Hatfield, Leicester Square, London, Lincoln, Manchester, Norwich, Sheffield, Southampton, and Wimbledon.
The cost of watching the match at the Odeon in Manchester is £8.00 per adult and £5.50 per child (under 15), although there are family tickets (either 1 adult with 3 children or 2 adults with 2 under 15s) which both cost £20.
Sadly there is no sign of the match being shown at any of Vue’s 60–70 cinemas, nor any other chain (Apollo Cinemas or Cineworld).
The Future of Football Broadcasting
On the positive side having a match legally viewable online is a step towards the future of live broadcasting of live sports.
This match is a one off but in the future all sporting events will be streamed live into your homes via the internet. Many top English football clubs already have a subscription service that enables supporters see match highlights, video interviews with club managers and players, and you can listen to live commentary for every match, if you so desire.
The Wanderers’ service, called ‘Bolton Player’, currently costs £3.99 per month or £34.99 for a 12 month subscription. (Incidentally, you can try Bolton Player for 14 days for free.)
One day, each club will effectively have its own online ‘TV channel’ that broadcasts every match, home and away, league and cup. Of course you will have to pay and pricing such a service will be tricky. Too high and it simply will not be used, too low and crowds at stadiums up and down the country will dwindle. Having bums on seats is doubtlessly important to a club and when there is more football available online the cost of actually going to a match ought to fall.
It is possible to watch most matches online already, for free. Whether all of these free video streams of live matches are legal or not is debatable and those that I have seen have been fairly low quality and far from reliable. There are some subscription services out there too and some betting websites offer live sports too (like the aforementioned bet365).
The technology to enable live broadcasting of football is in place and it will become more reliable and better quality. Live streaming has improved dramatically during the last decade and so it will continue to improve over the next. Our televisions will become web enabled, much like gaming consoles are already. Apple already have their TV device that enables you to wirelessly play music and video from your computer. Even without connection to a computer, the Apple TV little box of tricks offers downloadable television series, films and music via Apple’s iTunes Store.
Being able watch Ukraine versus England via the internet may be deemed an inconvenience but surely it is more convenient than travelling to Ukraine. Sure people will argue that it should be on television but if it were on satellite or cable we would still have to pay.
Today we are limited to which football matches we watch live on television and we usually have to pay for the privilege. In the future whether fans subscribe to a digital season ticket or purchase one off passes, the internet would be the cheapest way to enable fans to see every match live. This technology ought to be embraced by clubs as it would generate another lucrative stream of income.
So, will you be watching? I’d like to hear your views via the comments. After the game come back here and share your experiences, good or bad, whether you watched online or at a cinema.
England versus Ukraine — take a look at the help page before the match, there is some helpful information about software and which bitrate stream to use.
Perform Group — Latest News
Arts Alliance Media — Press Release
BBC Sport — England match to be internet only
Photo: Malinkrop
I won't be watching it mainly because the game does not have that much importance. I think it is the future for the way sports and TV as a whole will be shown. I watched The Ashes at work on a PC through Sky Player, That had the amazing Micheal Holiding commentating, this show has Sven.
Actually, live football has been shown via satellite in cinemas across the UK for years, starting with the 2002 World Cup. I should know, I organised the technical side for a major UK cinema operator back in 2002 when it was first done. Since then, the Euro Championships as well as the 2006 World Cup have been screened live in dozens of cinemas. It’s not new. Usually cinemas cannot charge for entry due to FIFA and sponsor rules, which means “indirect” charging for things like goodie bags and snack deals. It hasn’t proved especially successful from a money making point of view and there are hurdles removing a film to make way for TV sport, but I think the arrival of live 3D and live 3D football could be the turning point for getting fans into cinemas to watch football. It’s an area we’re looking at actually.
Actually, live football has been shown via satellite in cinemas across the UK for years, starting with the 2002 World Cup. I should know, I organised the technical side for a major UK cinema operator back in 2002 when it was first done. Since then, the Euro Championships as well as the 2006 World Cup have been screened live in dozens of cinemas. It's not new. Usually cinemas cannot charge for entry due to FIFA and sponsor rules, which means “indirect” charging for things like goodie bags and snack deals. It hasn't proved especially successful from a money making point of view and there are hurdles removing a film to make way for TV sport, but I think the arrival of live 3D and live 3D football could be the turning point for getting fans into cinemas to watch football. It's an area we're looking at actually.
Thank you very much for the up–to–date information Marc. Live 3D football sounds like it could add to the fun of watching footy at the cinema.