2023-11-04 16:40:50
I have always said that one of the great virtues of football and many other sports is that it has grown its business to record levels without needing to vary its product much. In business jargon, demand has skyrocketed in the face of a static supply in terms of diversity – same leagues, same tournaments – and with a price that has been increasing year after year. And that, without the need for what they propose to us to have changed much in five decades: the matches last at least ninety minutes, 22 players play and the main changes have been more focused on the technical and refereeing issues. Reforms that, in reality, have been aimed more at taking care of the employee – see footballers and coaches – than the consumer. And in these appears digital entertainment.
The emergence of the Super League allowed us to once again put on the table what young people want, since its main argument is that the new generations want to see more of the great powers and that the reflection is in the television audiences. On the contrary, media professionals and social networks give another perspective: football continues to be consumed, much more than before, but in different ways that escape from sitting for almost two hours in front of the television. And that is where the focus of attention must be placed for any future reform.
Do nothing, do everything
Oriol Querol, CEO of the Kings and Queens League, explained a few days ago on the D2F Partners podcast that one of his keys has been to introduce elements that make things happen every so often, such as a goal with double scoring, one-on-one plays… It is the extreme, and between doing nothing and doing everything there is a gray scale to which football – and others like tennis – should pay attention, because the monopoly of audiences continues to belong to sport, but we increasingly have more alternatives of leisure.
Probably the biggest criticism of current football as an audiovisual product – stadiums are growing in attendance – is that there are many phases in which nothing happens. It is a problem that the MLB also had, known for its marathon games and an increasingly aging public. Well, in 2023 they have reduced the average duration of crashes by 30 minutes and it is the lowest since 1984 – and even then it was 2 hours and 40 minutes. Attendance broke a three-season trend of decline.
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How they did it? Some very simple issues, such as a timer for changing batters and pitches, or having more players prepared so that the pace of the game does not stop. And here football should consider what is happening with its broadcasts, in which large referee and/or theatrical pauses cause lengthening. The matches usually last longer, but there is no more engaging action.
So maybe, just maybe, the next big football reforms should put the fan at the center, without that implying no consideration for the players. But at stake is that future negotiations will be hooked on the product, because it is of little use in the long term that the consumption of short videos on social networks will skyrocket if this is not accompanied by a subsequent conversion to pay television subscribers.
‘Winter is coming’ in the value of football on TV
Football as we know it today has reached its peak of maturation in domestic markets. The main indicator to see it is the value of the audiovisual rights of the major leagues in their respective countries. For now, the only one that has been able to emerge more or less victorious from this harsh winter has been LaLiga and it was with a revaluation of 1% compared to the previous cycle, to stand at 990 million euros while waiting for what it can additionally obtain with direct marketing of the channel for bars and the entire Second Division.
Many sold that as a defeat, but let’s review what happened next. Serie A has gone from 927 million to 900 million euros and a variable with Dazn depending on the degree of success, very far from the expectation of 1,050 million euros that they set for Italy a few years ago. In France, Ligue 1 wanted to go from 624 million to 800 million euros and the competition has run out of offers and with Canal+ facing competition. In Germany, the Bundesliga agreed to drop from 1.16 billion to 1.1 billion.
And in these appears the Premier League, whose strength is now put to the test. It is 1.9 billion a year and, faced with the risk of being swept away by the trend, it has entered 70 more games a year into competition to combat possible lower offers.
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