Bristol Rovers CEO Tom Gorringe is in favour of lifting the 3pm broadcast blackout, confident it won’t have an impact on attendances and believing the additional streaming revenues for clubs, particularly in the EFL, will be vital.
The EFL is currently negotiating a new TV deal for the 2024/25 campaign, when the deal with Sky Sports expires, and beyond with reports claiming that coverage could be split across several stations and providers, opening the possibility for more streaming.
Previous fears, and the reason why the blackout was established in the 1960s, is that televising game with a 3pm kick-off on a Saturday would automatically lead to fewer fans through the turnstiles which would then have an adverse effect on club revenues due to lower attendances. Only matches outside the specified time zone of 2.45-5.15pm can be streamed domestically, such as the win at Oxford United at the end of February which kicked off at 12:30.
Speaking on the What the Footie podcast, Gorringe says that attitudes to streaming have changed and that essentially there are two different sets of audiences that would enable the blackout to be lifted and it would create a larger revenue stream, and not take away from the traditional model of taking money on the door.
“I think when we moved to iFollow initially, there was some real strong opposition against streaming at all, never mind the 3pm blackout; I think there was a fear that it would lead to reduced attendances and people choosing to stream games,” Gorringe said.
“My personal view is, that’s not the case - if fans can attend the game, they will. If they can’t, more often than not, and they can stream it, they will.
“We’ve generated a huge amount of income through iFollow over the past couple of seasons. One of the ‘benefits’ of Covid was that it helps supporters get used to that process and obviously we’re seeing digital streaming across the whole of sport change dramatically.
“We were the highest-streamed team in League Two last season, and we’re having really strong numbers again this year in League One.
“I think it’ll probably change in the coming years. I think those that are against it, the arguments have diminished over the past few years and I don’t think there are any valid ones remaining that I’m aware of.
“We had instances last season where we were playing away fixtures, we’d sold out our allocation and we were unable to either stream the game online, or even stream the game here at the stadium for fans to buy tickets and come and attend.
"We had long discussions with the EFL about it because they could only grant permission for us to do that if there wasn’t a risk for disorder, which seems crazy to me. Particularly coming out of the back of Covid when it’s so hard for clubs to generate income and you’re denying clubs the opportunity to generate income when the game has already sold out.
“I think we’ll probably see some quite strong changes over the coming years in terms of streaming and how games are viewed by supporters, not just in this country but all over the world.
“The strange thing about us, at the moment, is fans in this country can’t watch our games at 3 o’clock on a Saturday but fans in other countries can and all that leads to piracy, and people finding illegitimate to ways to watch the game when actually most of them would be more comfortable with that money going to the football clubs.”
Gorringe also voiced his support for the creation of an independent regulator in football, as recommended in the Government White Paper published in February, which was commissioned in the wake of the Bury scandal and threats around the establishment of the European Super League.
The redistribution of money from the Premier League through the divisions needs to increase. As the English top-flight remains in rude financial health - a record £815m was spent by Premier League clubs in the January transfer window - that has greater impact further down the pyramid, as it leads to increased inflation and financial expectations clubs simply can’t meet.
EFL chairman Rick Parry wants 25 per cent of Premier League TV revenues to be spread throughout the divisions, but as it stands there is no proposal on the table. Although that could change with the establishment of an independent regulator who would have powers of arbitration to resolve such financial disputes between the governing bodies.
“The financial model of football in this country is broken,” Gorringe added, with Rovers part of the Fair Game collective of clubs calling for a more level financial playing field. “I think that’s clear for anybody (to see) and the White Paper that’s been released addressed that issue.
“It’s extremely hard for clubs at our level to compete because the gaps go up and the possible rewards of success are so big, And ultimately on the counter side of that, the impacts of relegation then are equally as bad, sometimes worse, and what that does is intensify clubs to gamble.
“We want to build sustainably, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves but there are lots of clubs that do and that ultimately drives up inflation in the game. The more wages increase, the higher they go, the harder it is for clubs to compete.
“We operate at the moment at a loss between 3 and 3.5 million a year, and that’s to be in the middle in terms of budgets; a League One club with decent attendances, record revenue - it’s really hard.
“You go into the Premier League and that world flips upside down and actually what would be a relatively small amount of distribution coming out into the EFL would make a huge effect on the sustainability of the pyramid.”
Gorringe has cited hometown club Brighton & Hove Albion as a model for which Rovers could follow, in terms of a team who have spent much of their existence in the EFL but after moving to Amex Stadium in 2011 having just been promoted into the Championship, were then able to build steadily and become a consistent Premier League force.
With Rovers remaining at the Mem, albeit with designs still on a new stadium at the Fruit Market in St Philips’ Marsh, the club are limited in their flexibility in how they can continue to drive revenues with steady attendances in north Bristol.
There is a desire to rebuild the South Stand to accommodate around 4,000 fans rather than 1,300 but achieving that before the start of next season - as has been mooted - appears ambitious, and season ticket prices for 2023/24 have increased by around 7 per cent for next season.
But Gorringe admits that the club are simply trying to make more money off the pitch, to invest back into the first-team squad for success on the pitch.
“I think there’s often a misconception with fans that clubs are often just trying to get more money out of them,” Gorringe said. “We’ve been quite open about the fact that we are trying to generate more income so that we can invest all that directly into the first team. Ultimately the more income we generate, the bigger our wage budget will be and the better we can compete on the pitch.
“It has to be that case with the way the financial structures are in place. We’ve gone up from League Two to League One and it’s more difficult to compete financially at League One level than League Two, because proportionally your revenue doesn’t increase by the same level but the wages have to if you want to compete, if you have any sort of ambition.
“Hopefully, over time, the EFL get around the table with the Premier League and we can start to see some changes in the game because, as we stand, it’s very difficult for clubs to compete and be sustainable without a wealthy benefactor.”
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