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Of course the anticipation was that it wouldn’t be long before the other clubs started charging for the service so maybe it was quite nice to be seen as the trailblazers. Certainly everyone else was supposed to be on board by the start of the 2002/03 season.
The thing is that 4 months later and with the new season only 3 weeks away relatively few clubs in Division One have joined us. At the moment only Grimsby Town, Leicester City, Millwall, Preston, Reading, Rotherham United and both Sheffield clubs who have launched their own services.
Coventry City, Derby County and Ipswich Town still have their own sites and are not part of the NTL deal due to them recently being in the Premiership.
Stoke City have announced that they are due to launch next week as were Nottingham Forest but Forest have now postponed their launch pending the outcome of talks initiated by NTL who are seeking to restructure the deal by asking the clubs to forego the automatic payments they were entitled to in return for a greater share of any future profits. In fact NTL are due to pay £5 million to the League this Friday 19th July and it remains to be seen if this payment will be met but, given the timing of the announcement of the ‘restructuring’ talks, it sounds unlikely.
With Forest putting things on hold until the deal is sorted out it seems a fair bet that the remaining clubs who have not yet signed up will do the same and it looks like turning into a bit of a mess.
The current deal on offer from the clubs on board with the premium service is a one off payment of £34.99 for a subscription to run until the end of August 2003. It has to be said that does not sound too expensive. If you just count the 9 months of the football season it works out at less than £3.90 per month and I’m sure that many will think that is worth it for the exclusive video interviews and the video archive alone.
The problem is that there is now a very real prospect that the other clubs will not be on board by the start of the season and that Clarets fans who are less willing to hand over their £34.99 will be driven to the websites of our opponents for commentary and highlights where the services may well be still available for free.
This is not Burnley FC’s fault but I can’t believe how badly this has been organised. Would it have been too difficult for everyone to have launched their subscription services together over the summer?
Unless this is sorted out soon it seems very likely that Clarets fans unable to attend the seasons opener against Brighton and Hove Albion will not be logging on to burnleyfootballclub.com but to seagulls.co.uk and that is a disgraceful state of affairs as will be the fact that Clarets fans might have to pay for services that others are getting for free.
It seems to me to be symptomatic of the disorganisation and frankly the incompetence of the Football League and its business partners at the moment and it was the last thing that anyone wanted following the summer of confusion caused by the collapse of ITV digital.
Whether you agree with having a premium subscription service or not you have to hope that this sorry state of affairs is sorted out and quickly.