How Sky Changed Football

**tetsujin1979** · 27/06/2007, 9:53 AM

Anyone else watch this? I was expecting a self serving, incredibly biased, aren't-we-the-best-thing-ever-EVER style report on the impact Sky Sports, and more importantly it's money, has had on the Premiership.
And I was right

Footage from football before 1992 was minimal, focusing instead on the state of the stadiums, and hooligan violence. To watch the first 30 minutes or so, you'd think English football was played in sheds in front of a handful of nutjobs who were there only to beat 8 shades of gray out of each other, while the majority of the country watched live snooker on BBC!
As for the roundtable discussion, the 2 remotely dissenting voices (Brian Moore and Henry Winter) were given minimal time, while Andy Gray got the lion's share of screen time.

**Steve Bruce** · 27/06/2007, 11:20 AM

Sky Sports was good for big clubs, disastrous for medium and small clubs.

Sky Sports is also to blame for the dicline in attendances in Irish football.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

**pete** · 27/06/2007, 11:30 AM

I believe this was on Sky One? You hardly expected unbiased reporting?

reder · 02/07/2007, 1:26 PM

Originally Posted by Steve Bruce

Sky Sports is also to blame for the dicline in attendances in Irish football.

Do you honestly believe that? Cant accept that. Surely the decline in attendances at games on this island lies with those who are/were responsible for promoting the game here?

The programme was awful. For the record, I would prefer the dingy old stadium and all that went with it. I really disliked the way they zoned in on hooliganism. Before the PL, there was alot of hooliganism but most people went to the watch the game and enjoy it. Also hooliganism are PL games is far from distinct nowadays.

**Steve Bruce** · 03/07/2007, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by reder

Do you honestly believe that? Cant accept that. Surely the decline in attendances at games on this island lies with those who are/were responsible for promoting the game here?

The programme was awful. For the record, I would prefer the dingy old stadium and all that went with it. I really disliked the way they zoned in on hooliganism. Before the PL, there was alot of hooliganism but most people went to the watch the game and enjoy it. Also hooliganism are PL games is far from distinct nowadays.

Yes I do believe that. Why would a casual football fan go to an Irish League/LOI game when he can sit and watch ManU or Liverpool on the box?

With Irish League football, we had more than that reason though, if you ever get hold of an Irish League year book(from Malcom Brodie) you should take a look at the Irish Cup final attendances. Crowds of 30-40,000 then 1969 hit(year of troubles) and the crowds went below 10,000.

I know people down in the Republic think it's an excuse, but the troubles in Northern Ireland did contribute greatly to the demise of crowds going to Irish League games and we missed out in a whole generation of supporters.

So when the ceasefires came along, sky sports was in full flow and people didn't think about going back to Irish League games, they instead watched the match in a bar on a Monday night, Sunday afternoon etc.

But their is point you raised which I also agree with. Our leagues, in particular Irish League do not do enough to attract crowds and their is little to no marketing of our league.

So in conclusion, I do think Sky has a lot to do with people prefaring to stay at home. But our administrators do not do enough to entice the average Joe back into our grounds either.