HawkMan

Back to back relegation for Luton, sad really. All the optimism and plans for the future up in smoke. Do they get year 2 Premier parachute money in League 1 ?

It was Bournemouth they were playing not Palace. I'm assuming you lose a fair bit at the bookies.

This is probably old news, but I've only just seen details of new Premier League deal with Sky and TNT. Staggering stuff; The Premier League has agreed a new record £6.7bn UK TV rights deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport), to broadcast up to 270 live games a season. The new deal will come into play from the 2025-26 season, and will cover four years. For the first time, all matches outside the Saturday 3.00pm blackout (a rule introduced in 1960 to prevent matches from being televised between 2.45pm and 5.25pm on that day) will be broadcast live. Sky won four of the five packages to show a minimum of 215 matches a season, including all first pick matches. Sky Sports will therefore be the home of Saturday 5.30pm kick-offs, Sunday 2.00pm and 4.30pm kick-offs, plus Monday and Friday night fixtures and three midweek rounds. TNT will show at least 52 matches a season, including all 12.30pm kick-offs and two midweek rounds. Sky Sports will also broadcast all 10 matches live on the final day of the season, which the channel says should "create a real moment for fans." Elsewhere, the BBC struck its own deal with the Premier League to extend its rights to the Premier League highlights. This means the iconic free-to-air highlights programme Match Of The Day, which celebrates its 60th Anniversary in August 2024, will remain a staple of Saturday nights up to and including the 2028/29 season. The deal also includes MOTD2 and Football Focus. Amazon, who currently show 20 matches per season in the existing deal, has not secured any of the new rights.

As an aside- Next season Truro could be playing Oldham Athletic who were in the first Premier League! The pyramid system, P+R resulting in glory and desperation in equal measure.

Division Four? What's that? I thought it was Division 3 North and Division3 South, when did they start calling it Division 4 ?

Genuine question- I'm not totally up with this IMG stuff, why is there no relegation this season ?

According to AI again, No, the New York World newspaper did not sponsor the first World Series. While the newspaper was popular and the idea of a "World Series" was partly driven by marketing efforts to attract fans, the name originated from the event's early designation as the "World's Championship Series". The New York World's influence on the game was limited to general promotion and cultural relevance, not direct sponsorship of the event, according to a post by the Society for American Baseball Research.

According to AI, that is exactly why it was so named. Reasons for the Name: The name "World Series" likely reflected a few factors: Marketing: The title aimed to highlight the grand scope of the event, emphasizing it as a "world" championship. Patriotism: In the early 20th century, the United States was a dominant force, and the name may have reflected a sense of national pride. Global Significance: Even though baseball was primarily a US sport at the time, the name "World Series" implied a global reach and competition for the "world championship".

McDonald's has Mcplant burger, Burger King has Vegan Royale , but I get your point. As for Super Greed, I've never understood that accusation at either SL or Premier league. SL just has not got the money to splash around in an altruistic way. And the Premier league distributes 350m to lower leagues, a good percentage of its income.

Very interesting, where were these empty seats, what numbers were they? I must know please find out.

Bloody United ruined my evening. Spurs v Lyon in the final had a nice ring to it. Bilbao or Man United I can see us getting beat. We can't lose to Bodo/Glimt...can we?

Mbappe was going to go to Inter Miami before Trump put a 100% tarrif on importing players or managers to the MLS, his plan to win the WC next year.

Relocate the ERL to a RL hotbed in the EU...like Athens. The Greeks are very trustworthy with EU money.

With just 5 games to go in the Championship staggeringly NONE of the 24 teams know what league they'll be in next season. Promotion possibility or relegation threat involves every team. Only Southampton, relegated, and Birmingham, promoted, know they'll be in it next season. Fans are loving it, attendances are great, perhaps RL and IMG or even the NRL considering a takeover should contemplate what fans of League may want before implementing plans.

You're right, they won't be sodding off any time soon because of the money to be made. Southampton, the potentially worst team in Premier League history this season, still short of the worst points haul , will make about £100m if you include parachute payments, that's what SL gets in 5 years. As for your point about fans paying exorbitant prices and why do they do it. 90% of tickets are season tickets, I'm sure if every match was sold as individual match tickets only then as the season went on the teams with naff all to play for or producing rubbish would see attendances drop rapidly.

I think I prefer this to the UEFA CL draws. If UEFA were doing this it'll be an hour show with endless droning on..

Even worse , it's a fact that over 40% of Internet traffic are bots, not human. Who on this forum could be a bot? Excuse me, I'm low on power, need to plug myself in .....

WE can expect a call from MI5? Is there something you're not telling us Martyn. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Martyn Sadler

That's because VAR is a disaster. I never thought I'd say it, but Blatter and Platini , whom have just been cleared of any corruption, were right to rally against VAR. In League VR is used properly to help the ref sort out the intricacies of the wonderfully tough and complex incidents the game throws up ,layers of nuance that can't often be spotted. VAR on the other hand is destroying the flow of the game by micro managing so called big incidents that are generally irrelevant to anything, like was a player a toenail offside, or was a tiny shove sending a cheating player hurtling through the air actually a little shove , not tiny, therefore a game changing penalty. A lot of football fans are getting sick of it, I know I am. I'm watching more and more League and less and less the contrived entertainment that football is becoming, and I'm a genuine football fan. BTW an Ashes moan; I'm not a fan of the 2.30 kick offs, BBC have 6 nations drivel on at 5pm, why not The Ashes?

@Father Gascoignethe Europe WC qualification process has been revamped for this WC. Four team groups are operating and a few five team ones. All the big teams, except England, were in Nations League action and the likes of Italy Germany etc don't start qualification until September and finish in November!! Also football won't stop the likes of Andorra, Liechtenstein etc from playing the big boys. RL, RU and to some extent Cricket, make that mistake, with tier 1 and 2 nations , first class teams etc, meaning the minnows never improve because they're not deemed up to standards to get fixtures. Football doesn't do that, one day perhaps the RL authorities will realise that and give the lesser nations matches to improve their standards.

As a fan of course I'd watch my team if the competition lost top players because the money coming in went down. But it wouldn't be the same without the best in it. I suppose it's a matter of personal circumstances. No one wants to pay extortionate amounts, but I don't feel its extortionate but what I'd expect to watch the games I want to watch. Back on topic, the NRL deal is good and splitting the packages up to get more income isn't a problem for me. Its a great comp, I watch more than SL, if the dream of RL in general hitting the big time globally I mean really big, then paying more for it is inevitable. Suppose TNT want a piece of the RL action and bid against Sky, both end up with a package, the game gets more income and suddenly to watch all the games fans have to have two subscriptions. Any complaints then?

Without being too political, what's happening in Gaza is a disaster, fans making do with watching 6 CL group games and not 8 is not a disaster. I'm not anti consumer, but if you want the competition to maintan the standards and attract the top players ( and not going off to Saudi or wherever), the money must come from competitive tendering and that is paid for by subscribers

You don't need to subscribe to multiple channels to follow your team even in the Champions League. To watch EVERY match, yes, but FTA highlights mean you don't need to subscribe at all. For Liverpool for example, TNT will do for CL, a couple will be on Amazon but that's all. What it isn't is a disaster for fans and certainly not for the tournament. The days of TV viewers being entitled to watch everything are long gone. There are always moaners whose sense of entitlement means they think they should see it all without paying much and still expect to see the top stars. Returning to those days will be mean bye- bye to the top stars, with no competition for broadcasting between rival global TV companies, the money will go down if its all on one channel. We see that with SL , Sky pay rubbish because they have no competition.

Yeah totally disastrous for the Champions League, nobody bothers with it anymore, stadiums half full, only 20,000 for the Liverpool v PSG match. All the top players invisible, media ignores it, MOTD Champions League probably to be axed, no international TV interest apart a couple of European countries, God help the NRL if it went down the CL route, total disaster.